Chapter One
Capitalist Development

The management of most printing firms is in the hands of non-specialists, of complete outsiders with absolutely no understanding of the printing trade. . . . Of course, it is not possible to forbid a capitalist to open a printing firm.
Letter to Survey of the Graphic Arts (Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv ), February 1882

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Russian printing industry was transformed from a small artisanal craft closely tied to the state into a relatively large-scale, diversified, and technologically developed industry run by capitalist entrepreneurs and professional managers. How workers or employers perceived these changes is not my concern here; that is the subject, at least indirectly, of much of the rest of this book. My focus for the moment is on the more tangible surfaces of that experience: growth in output, the establishment of new forms of enterprise, career paths of entrepreneurs and managers, changes in the social composition and structure of the labor force, transformations in the work process, and the physical environment of the workshop. These were the economic and social structures in which printing employers, managers, and workers spent their working lives, and in relation to which they in large measure defined themselves.

Growth and Technical Change

Private commercial printing in Russia, legalized only in the late eighteenth century, grew at an exceptional pace in the second half of the nineteenth century. This growth reflected an increasingly dynamic social and cultural environment: an expanding economy, a rich literary and intellectual life among educated elites, the spread of reading among the lower classes, and the softening of official censorship laws and

practices.^[1] These conditions generated unprecedented demand for books, journals, and newspapers. From 1855 to 1901, the number of books published annually increased from little more than a thousand titles to over ten thousand, and the number of periodicals increased from slightly more than a hundred to over a thousand (including an increase in daily newspapers from only three to more than a hundred).^[2] Circulations and pressruns also grew dramatically.^[3] In the view of the writer and bibliographer Nikolai Rubakin, Russia in the late nineteenth century was engulfed by an "irresistible torrent" of books and periodicals.^[4] This flood was further intensified by growing demand for the printed paraphernalia of business: labels, letterheads, preprinted business forms, advertisements, bills, and placards.

The structure of the printing industry was permanently altered as it responded to this increasing demand. The most noticeable change was the sheer growth in the number of people involved. From the late 1850s until the economic recession of the 1880s, and again in the 1890s, new printing enterprises proliferated in St. Petersburg and Moscow (see table 1). Almost all of the major private printing firms of the early twentieth century were founded between 1852 and 1882, most in the 1860s and 1870s. The industry's labor force grew at an even more rapid rate, especially in the last decades of the century when fewer new enterprises opened. From 1881 to 1900, the number of typographic and lithographic workers in St. Petersburg and Moscow more or less doubled (see table 2).

As such data suggest, the creation of new enterprises gave way toward the end of the century to the expansion of existing plants. Smallscale production was by no means eliminated. Even after the turn of the century, the majority of printing shops employed fewer than sixteen workers (see table 3). But production and labor were concentrated in-

[1] The most important of the censorship reforms was the new code of 1864, which replaced prepublication censorship of most books and periodicals (periodicals that requested exemption, original books of at least ten printed signatures, and translated books of at least twenty signatures) with a system of legal and administrative penalties. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, ser. 2, vol. 40, part 1, no. 41988 (April 6, 1865), p. 396; no. 41990 (6 April 1865), pp. 397–406. For a discussion of the law and its initial implementation, see Ruud, Fighting Words, pp. 147–80; Balmuth, Censorship in Russia, pp. 19–58.

[2] Knizhnyi vestnik, 1866, no. 9–10 (May 31), p. 231; Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia, 1862, vol. 114, pp. 250–55; Kufaev, Istoriia russkoi knigi v XIX veke, pp. 173, 217–18; Rubakin, "Knizhnyi potok"; Lisovskii, "Periodicheskaia pechat' v Rossii," pp. 21–26; Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki i kritiki, vol. 2, pp. 30–31,449.

[3] Esin, "Russkaia legal'naia pressa," pp. 7–8.

[4] Rubakin, "Knizhnyi potok," p. 1.

creasingly in the larger enterprises. Before the 1880s, only a few government-owned printing plants employed more than one hundred workers. By 1903, there were forty-six such firms, most of them private enterprises, employing three-fifths or more of printing workers in St. Petersburg and Moscow (table 3).^[5] To be sure, compared to Russian metalworking or textile firms—which sometimes employed several

[5] For similar data, see Sher, Istoriia, pp. 11–15, and Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy, pp. 191–93.

thousand workers—printing firms were not especially large; the largest typically employed only five or six hundred workers, and only one, the printing department of the Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper (Ekspeditsiia zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag), employed more than a thousand. Still, compared to printing enterprises in other countries, Russian printing was exceptionally concentrated in large plants.^[6]

The expansion of Russian printing also altered the structure and organization of production. Until the 1860s, more for economic than for technological reasons, most printing work in Russia was hand work. Mechanized printing presses were available, and European and American producers tried to market them in Russia. The first mechanized press used in Russia was imported in 1818 by a British printer who managed the printshop of the Russian Bible Society in St. Petersburg. Soon after, the Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper began importing printing machines, seeking to improve the quality of paper money, and some private employers soon followed, especially after the cost of this equipment was reduced when domestic manufacture of printing machinery began in the late 1820s.^[7] However, for most Russian printing shops before the 1860s, there was little reason to invest in a skoropechatnaia mashina , or "fast-printing machine," since relatively low demand made the output of the old hand press quite adequate. As a result, until the 1860s hand presses continued to outnumber mechanized presses,^[8] and even those mechanized presses that were in use were usually powered not by steam engines but by "crankmen" (vertel'-shchiki ), who turned the heavy flywheels by hand.^[9] In the 1860s, the process of technical modernization began to accelerate dramatically. In 1871, the Moscow inspector of printing firms reported a "yearly increase in the number of newly opened printing firms, in the number of printing machines, and in the replacement of hand power by steam."^[10] In the 1880s and 1890s, the number, size, and productivity of printing machines increased further.^[11]

[6] Sher, Istoriia , p. 15.

[7] Zakharov, "Svedeniia o nekotorykh peterburgskikh tipografiiakh," pp. 65, 72–73; 400 let , vol. 1, pp. 268–69; Severnaia pchela July 26, 1829, p. 4.

[8] Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , p. 150.

[9] Zakharov, "Svedeniia o nekotorykh peterburgskikh tipografiiakh," p. 79; Shchelgunov, Iskusstvo knigopechataniia , p. 138; Severnaia pchela , July 26, 1829, p. 4.

[10] Quoted in Sher, Istoriia , p. 5.

[11] For a detailed account of the mechanization of printing in Moscow, see Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 148–53, 186–90; 400 let , pp. 367–68; Savinov, Ukazatel' goroda Moskvy , p. 267; Knizhnik 1865, no. 10–11 (October–November), pp. 621–36.

By the turn of the century, most printing firms had at least one "fastprinting machine."^[12] But the impact of mechanization on the industry was far from even. Some techniques were especially difficult to mechanize, notably lithographic printing and bookbinding, whose technologies remained largely traditional.^[13] Type composition was even more resistant to mechanization, but for different reasons. Although effective mechanized typesetting became available in the late 1870s and its potential advantages were periodically discussed in the professional press, no typesetting machines were purchased until 1903, and even these were rarities before 1906, when the higher wages that resulted from workers' strikes made them begin to appear a more economical investment.^[14] Mechanization also affected different firms differently. The smaller shops usually bought only the simplest of flat-bed presses or one or two of the small and inexpensive platen presses, known as amerikanki , which first appeared in the 1860s. The larger firms were able to purchase much more productive machinery, including steam-powered multi-cylindered presses and even continuous-feeding rotary web presses.^[15]

Entrepreneurship

Although the role of official printing remained strong into the early 1900s, especially in St. Petersburg, where a third of the city's printing workers were employed in the nine largest governmental printing

[12] Judging by Moscow data in Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 152, 188–89.

[13] Sher, Istoriia , p. 35; Bakhtiarov, Slugi pechati , p. 42; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 45; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 150, 168–69, 186– 90; E[izen], Ocherk istorii perepletnogo dela .

[14] Knizhnyi vestnik 1864, no. 23 (July 31), p. 281; Tipografskii zhurnal 2:21–22 (May 15, 1869), pp. 80–81; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1879, no. 5 (March 1), p. 38; 1882, no. 8 (April 15), p. 48; Knizhnyi vestnik 1885, no. 10 (May 15), p. 354; 1885, no. 13–14 (July 15), p. 472; 1890, no. 12 (December), p. 495; Obzor pervoi vserossiiskoi vystavki 32 (June 8, 1895), p. 8; Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 1:1 (September 1, 1895), pp. 3–4; 3:9 (September 1898), pp. 129–31; 4:9 (February 1900), p. 146; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , p. 228; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 66; 400 let , p. 371; Leninskii zakaz , p. 20.

[15] In a platen press, the type and paper both sit on flat surfaces and are simply pressed against one another. Flatbed cylinder presses, which long predominated in the production of books, move the type on a flat bed beneath a rotating impression cylinder, which carries the paper. The more complex flatbed presses use multiple cylinders to print in two colors and on both sides of the sheet in a single pass through the press. Rotary presses print from curved plates—in Russia, at that time, mainly metal stereotype molds of composed type—attached to a cylinder. This is the most efficient style of press for fast and long-run presswork and can print in multiple colors and on both sides of the paper. Rotary web presses print on rolls of paper called "webs" that are cut into sheets and often folded automatically.

firms,^[16] most of the expansion and modernization of production in the late nineteenth century was the work of private commercial entrepreneurs. Many of these capitalist printers were non-Russians, often immigrants or their children, who brought to printing the "capital, knowledge, and the spirit of enterprise" that Finance Minister Sergei Witte had hoped foreigners would provide Russian industry.^[17] The technical needs of printing created a particular demand for foreign-trained printers, reflected in their large role. In 1875 in St. Petersburg nearly onequarter (23 percent) of the owners of printing firms were foreign nationals, mostly Germans. There were also "immigrants" from lands that had been annexed as the Russian empire expanded—Germans and others from the Baltic provinces (9 percent in 1875) and Jews from the Pale of Settlement (12 percent in 1881).^[18] In Moscow as well, nonRussians played a disproportionate role as entrepreneurs, though less so than in cosmopolitan St. Petersburg. In 1885, 14 percent of the owners of printing firms were foreign subjects, mostly Germans, with an additional 4 percent born in the Baltic provinces and 2 percent identified as Jews. By contrast, ethnic non-Russians constituted only 5 percent of the general population in Moscow.^[19]

Rudolf Schneider was in many respects typical of these printers of foreign origin. Born in the then-Prussian city of Danzig (Gdansk) in 1834, he was forced by his family's poverty to quit school at the age of fourteen and take a position as an apprentice compositor. After completing his apprenticeship, he set out on his traditional Wanderjahre . Working his way around printing houses in Austria, the Rheinland, France, and Hungary, he arrived in 1858 in St. Petersburg, where he

[16] Calculated from sources as in table 3.

[17] Von Laue, "A Secret Memorandum of Sergei Witte," esp. pp. 68–69. For a general discussion of foreign investment and entrepreneurship in Russia, see McKay, Pioneers for Profit; essays by Fred Carstensen, William Blackwell, and Thomas C. Owen, in Guroff and Carstensen, Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia , pp. 17–18, 59–60, 140–58; Rieber, Merchants and Entrepreneurs , pp. 247–49, 266–67; Gindin, "Russkaia burzhuaziia v period kapitalizma," part 1, pp. 63–71.

[18] Spisok zavedenii pechati v S.-Peterburge (1875); S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1881 goda , vol. 1, part 2, pp. 311–12. The 1875 spisok does not identify foreign-born individuals who adopted Russian citizenship or Baltic-born individuals who legally registered as residents of Moscow or St. Petersburg, though a few of these have been identified from other sources. For comparison, it may be noted that in the general population of the city, individuals identified as other than Orthodox native Russian-speakers comprised only 17% of the total. S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1881 goda , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 242–43.

[19] Torgovo-promyshlennye zavedeniia goroda Moskvy v 1885–1890 gg ., pp. 62– 65; Perepis' Moskvy 1882 goda , vypusk 2, tables, pp. 93–98, 393–94; Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik , August 17 (29), 1883. Again, the percentage of foreign subjects does not include naturalized foreign-born.

found work first as a compositor and then as a production manager and soon managed to purchase his own small printing shop.^[20]

Second-generation immigrants were typically even more successful. For example, Roman Golike's father came to St. Petersburg from the Estonian city of Dorpat (Tartu) in 1837 as a twenty-year-old compositor and worked his way up through the ranks to become manager of the press owned by another immigrant, a shop he was able to buy on credit in 1851. Roman attended the Realschule of the Reformed church in St. Petersburg, a central institution in Petersburg's foreign community,^[21] and completed a part-time apprenticeship in his father's shop; in 1869 he was sent to London and Paris to earn his own living as a compositor. On returning to Russia in 1871, he built up his father's firm into one of the most respected quality-printing houses in the capital.^[22]

Although most immigrant printing entrepreneurs followed this general pattern of upward mobility from skilled worker to shop owner, some established or purchased printing firms as extensions of successful careers in related fields, especially publishing and bookselling. For example, Adolf Marx, the son of a Stettin clock-factory owner, trained as a bookseller in Schwerin and Berlin before coming in 1859 to St. Petersburg, where he built a successful bookselling and publishing business and on this basis founded a large printing house.^[23]

The rapid expansion of printing in the late nineteenth century also created opportunities for skilled workmen to become entrepreneurs. In the 1890s, a foreman complained that in former times only "educated people with means" owned printing shops, whereas now "many are former compositors."^[24] Unfortunately, we know little about most of these workers-turned-entrepreneurs because they tended to own inconspicuous shops and were not usually active in professional organizations. However, the career of one, Ivan Frolov, may suggest both the

[20] Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1882, no. 1–2 (January 1 and 15), pp. 2–3; 1884, no. 12 (June 15), p. 91; Tipografskii zhurnal 1:2 (July 15, 1867), p. 6; Galaktionov, Zhurnaly pechatnogo dela , pp. 3–9.

[21] Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' , vol. 26, p. 633.

[22] Pechatnia R. R. Golike , pp. 1–8; Pechatnoe iskusstvo 1:4 (January 1902), pp. 125–28.

[23] Knigovedenie: Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' , p. 334; 400 let , p.380; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1883, no. 11 (January 1), p. 98.

[24] A. A. Filippov in Novoe vremia , March 22/April 3, 1895, p. 3; also in Vestnik graficheskogo dela 1 (March 14, 1897), p. 3. The early Soviet historians of Petersburg printing agreed:"Before 1905 . . . the owners of typographic, lithographic, binding, and zincographic enterprises for the most part came from among the workers." Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 34. See also Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , p. 122; Piatidesiatiletnii iubilei tipografii Ivana Grigor'evicha Chuksina , p. 4.

typical upward climb through the ranks and the distinctive personal attributes needed for such mobility. Born in the central Russian city of Riazan in 1851, Frolov finished a local primary school and began attending a gymnasium, but his family's poverty after his father's death forced him to leave school to seek work. Evidently wishing to practice a craft and perhaps to make use of his literacy, he sacrificed immediate earnings in order to accept an apprenticeship as a compositor. In 1878, he moved his family north to St. Petersburg, where for thirteen years he worked in the same shop, first as a compositor, then as a foreman, production manager, and finally director. Three years before his death at the age of forty-four, he purchased his own small press.^[25] Although native former workers such as Frolov may have operated many printing firms, they owned none of the major enterprises in the industry. Almost all of these were in the hands of non-Russians (generally immigrants or their children), individuals from privileged social ranks, or the state.

Two partial exceptions to this generalization are worth noting. Ivan Sytin, the owner of Russia's largest private printing company at the turn of the century, was the son of a provincial copy clerk (pisar' ) and was educated for only three years in a one-room schoolhouse before he started full-time work as an apprentice to a Moscow merchant specializing in the sale of cheap popular prints (lubki ) and brochures. Ten years later, with the help of this employer, who initially joined him as a partner, and a four-thousand-ruble dowry from his recent marriage, Sytin established a small lithographic printing shop with a half-dozen workers and a single press. Concentrating his initial efforts on meeting the growing demand for simple popular prints and publications for peasants and workers, and profiting especially during the RussoTurkish War by selling vivid maps of the campaign, Sytin was able to expand his operations quickly, adding a bookstore, a typographic shop, and a bindery during the course of the 1880s.

Sytin was from the first convinced that profit depended on modern techniques as well as good marketing. His first lithographic press was mechanized, and when he organized his typographic shop in 1884, steam power was installed from the outset. Sytin also favored modern financial arrangements to sustain expansion. Soon after his business was established, he raised 75,000 rubles by forming a limited partnership (tovarishchestvo na vere ), and in 1893 he raised another

[25] Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 1:10 (June 1896), p. 157.

350,000 rubles by establishing a limited-liability stock corporation (tovarishchestvo na paiakh ). By the turn of the century, his was the largest printing plant in Moscow, and his business included a plant in St. Petersburg and a network of bookstores throughout the country. His shareholders enjoyed a regular dividend of 10 percent on their investment. In later years he would be praised for his business abilities as a "Russian American."^[26]

Another successful printer whose background was neither privileged nor foreign was Petr Soikin, the son of a manumitted serf. While working as an accountant in St. Petersburg in the mid-1880s, he borrowed 800 rubles to purchase a small, unprofitable printing shop. Initially employing six workers on five hand presses, he raised the money for expansion by continuing to work as an accountant—in the daytime for the Baltic railroad and at night for the State Bank. Within a few years, he employed thirty men, many on mechanized presses, and began publishing his own journal, the popular science magazine Priroda i liudi (Nature and People). By 1895, Soikin employed 320 workers in a very profitable business. In 1903 he began construction of a new six-story building with its own electric power station.^[27]

Unlike Sytin and Soikin, most of the founders of large private printing firms came from relatively privileged backgrounds. Many were members of merchant guilds, such as the Glazunovs, who had been booksellers in St. Petersburg since the 1780s.^[28] Many—13 percent at the end of the century—were from the gentry, or had at least earned ranks of nobility through state or other public service.^[29] Members of the nobility had in fact been among the first private printers in Russia after Catherine II relinquished the government's monopoly over printing in the late eighteenth century. Their motivations, how-

[26] Ocherk izdatel'skoi deiatel'nosti t-va I. D. Sytina v Moskve; Miretskii, Pervaia Obraztsovaia tipografiia , pp. 18–22; Dinershtein, I. D. Sytin , pp. 6–26; Ruud, Russian Entrepreneur ; 400 let , pp. 417–18; Aktsionernoe delo v Rossii , vol. 2, vypusk 5, pp. 1207–08; Dmitriev-Mamonov, Ukazatel' deistvuiushchikh v Imperii aktsionernykh predpriiatii , vol. 1, pp. 570–71; Knizhnyi vestnik 1903, no. 16 (May 4), pp. 559–61.

[27] Kratkii ocherk razvitiia i deiatel'nosti tipografii P. P. Soikina , pp. 3–11; Dvadtsatipiatiletie tipografsko-izdatel'skoi deiatel'nosti P. P. Soikina , pp. 3–10; Knizhnyi mir 1910, no. 51 (December 19), pp. 1–2.

[28] Lisovskii, Kratkii ocherk , pp. 7–89; Knigovedenie , pp. 143–44.

[29] Spisok zavedenii pechati v S.-Peterburge (1875 and 1900); Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik , August 14 (26), 1883, and August 17 (29), 1883; Perepis' Moskvy 1882, tables, pp. 38–39; Torgovo-promyshlennye zavedeniia goroda Moskvy v 1885–1890 gg ., pp. 62– 65; S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1900 goda , vypusk 2, pp. 44–45; Spisok fabrik i zavodov , pp. 150–55, 162–67; Pogozhev, Adresnaia kniga , pp. 104–08, 113–15.

ever, were not mainly commercial. In the tradition of Western European "scholar-printers,"^[30] individuals such as Nikolai Novikov, Ivan Krylov, and Ivan Rakhmaninov established publishing and printing firms as extensions of their work as publicists. This tradition was continued into the early twentieth century by gentry printers such as Mikhail Stasiulevich, a professor of history whose publishing and printing firm in St. Petersburg was well known for its contributions to literature and liberal politics.^[31] The appeal of printing for nobles, who typically viewed an industrial occupation, according to the gentry industrialist Vasilii Poletika, as "something rather suspicious,"^[32] was its perception as the most artistic and intellectual of the trades.^[33]

In practice, however, for most noble printers the distinction between intellectual and commercial motives was necessarily blurred. Often having no other source of income, noble entrepreneurs could not disregard the imperatives of profit.^[34] Many in fact effectively combined the roles of Kulturträger and capitalist. Aleksei Suvorin, for example, left government service in the 1850s to pursue an intellectual career, initially as a journalist. In the 1870s, he decided to begin publishing a newspaper, to be called Novoe vremia (New Times). Finding no facilities equipped for the scale and speed of production he had in mind, he established his own plant and imported equipment from Western Europe, including the first web-fed rotary press to be used in Russia. By the time of his death in 1912, Suvorin was the owner of one of the largest and most profitable printing enterprises in the country (as well as an extensive publishing and bookselling business), employing nearly five hundred workers.^[35] But in the tradition of the scholar-printer,

[30] Knigovedenie , pp. 294, 375–76, 436; Marker, Publishing, Printing, and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia , 1700–1800 , pp. 111–14, 120–34; Marker describes this group as "literati" or "intellectual publishers." On "scholar-printers" in Western Europe, see Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Cbange , p. 239; idem, "The Early Printer as 'Renaissance Man,'" pp. 6–16; Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius , esp. p. 66.

[31] Knigovedenie , p. 517.

[32] Quoted by Berlin, Russkaia burzhuaziia , pp. 217–18. Poletika himself later embarked on an unsuccessful publishing venture. Bakhtiarov, Slugi pechati , p. 184.

[33] Gary Hamburg identifies book publishing among the perceived "worthy occupations" open to nobles in the late nineteenth century. Hamburg, Politics of the Russian Nobility , pp. 14–15.

[34] Korelin, Dvorianstvo v poreformennoi Rossii , ch. 2; Hamburg, Politics of the Russian Nobility , ch. 1.

[35] Kratkii ocherk izdatel'skoi deiatel'nosti A. S. Suvorina , p. 8; Fabrichno-zavodskie predpriiatiia rossiiskoi imperii (Petrograd, 1914), entry 2307; Ambler, Russian Journalism and Politics .

Suvorin thought of himself, "despite his business success, as primarily a man of letters."^[36]

One of Moscow's largest printing enterprises was also established by a gentry entrepreneur, Ivan Kushnerev, the son of a somewhat penurious serf-owner. One year after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, at the age of thirty-five, Kushnerev decided to sell his small estate, leave government service, and set himself up as a publisher in St. Petersburg. After several years without success, he moved to Moscow and redirected his efforts to printing rather than publishing. Borrowing money from a fellow member of the English Club, a traditional gathering place for Moscow's nobility, Kushnerev opened in 1869 a small printing shop in rented rooms with a dozen workers, one hand press, and a single printing machine, and immediately began reinvesting his profits for expansion. In 1876, in need of additional capital for expansion, Kushnerev reorganized his firm into a limited partnership with four partners. Twelve years later, he again restructured the company as a limited-liability corporation. When Kushnerev died in 1896, his company included a large-scale, mechanized printing factory housed in a specially constructed four-story building, with branches in Kiev and St. Petersburg and an annual profit of over 90,000 rubles, relatively high for the printing industry at that time.^[37] Typically for a gentry entrepreneur, however, Kushnerev aspired to be more than a successful capitalist. He remained active, if less than successful, as a publisher and even printed several volumes of his own rather uninspired publicistic writings.^[38]

As the industry became increasingly concentrated and commercialized, ownership began taking new forms. Although some entrepreneurs retained sole or family ownership of their companies, beginning in the 1890s many of the largest firms, seeking capital to expand, invited outside investors to purchase stock. By 1894, three large printing firms in St. Petersburg and five in Moscow had reorganized as limitedliability stock corporations (tovarishchestva na paiakh or aktsionernye obshchestva ), and all of the larger firms established in the 1880s or after were founded as corporations—notably, the enterprises of Iablon-

[36] Ambler, Russian Journalism and Politics , p. 179.

[37] Dvadtsatipiatiletie tipografii t-va Kushnerev , pp. 3–18; Leninskii zakaz , pp. 11– 19; Kratkii ocherk razvitiia masterskikh . . . Tovarishchestva I. N. Kushnerev; Fabrika knigi "Krasnyi proletarii," pp. 1–13; Otchet pravleniia I. N. Kushnerev i Ko. v Moskve za 1896 (Moscow, 1897), in TsGIAgM, f. 2316, op. 1, d. 1; 400 let , pp. 412–14; Knigovedenie , pp. 301–02.

[38] Kushnerev, Zemliakam and Sochineniia .

skii in St. Petersburg and Chicherin, Iakovlev, Vasil'ev, and the Russian Printing and Publishing Company (Russkoe tovarishchestvo pechatnogo i izdatel'skogo dela) in Moscow. By 1902, many of the largest private printing firms in St. Petersburg and virtually every major private enterprise in Moscow had been organized as limited-liability stock corporations. With a few hundred to a thousand available shares—the greater diffusion of shares being characteristic of aktsionernye obshchestva and as in other industries more characteristic of St. Petersburg—and totaling from a quarter of a million to over a million rubles of share capital in each firm, the formation of corporations in the 1880s and 1890s infused considerable capital into the industry and further strengthened the largest and most commercially oriented private firms.^[39]

As private entrepreneurship became the dominant form of enterprise in Russian printing in the late nineteenth century, even state printing was affected by the process of commercialization. A few official printing houses were leased to individuals to run as private firms, such as the press of the Ministry of Finance. But even when official firms remained fully in state hands, they were increasingly managed as commercial enterprises, taking in private as well as official orders (as private firms increasingly took in government business), mechanizing production to be more cost-effective, and attending to profits. Although almost all of the directors of state printing firms were hereditary nobles and had usually entered the printing business after many years of state service in other areas, many proved themselves to be effective commercial managers. For example, Prince Boris Borisovich Golitsyn, a member of one of Russia's oldest and most influential aristocratic families and a well-known intellectual, was appointed in 1899 to head the Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper. When he took over, this giant papermaking and printing enterprise, after a forty-year history of expansion and modernization, was facing a financial crisis, and the quality of its work

[39] Aktsionernoe delo v Rossii , vol. 2, vypusk 5, pp. 1192–1211; Dmitriev-Mamonov, Ukazatel' deistvuiushchikh v Imperii aktsionernykh predpriiatii , vol. 1, pp. xxiii–xxiv and passim; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 196–97. On the different patterns of corporate structure in Russian industry generally, specifically the Petersburg industrialists' tendency to sell a relatively large number of less expensive shares while the more traditional Moscow owners preferred to keep closer control of their companies, see Owen, "Entrepreneurship and the Structure of Enterprise," pp. 67– 71. I am grateful to Thomas Owen for demonstrating statistically the applicability of his argument to the printing industry on the basis of his RUSCORP: A Database of Corporations in the Russian Empire, 1700–1914 .

was declining. Golitsyn effectively improved both its finances and its technique.^[40]

The history of entrepreneurship in Russian printing in the late nineteenth century included hardship and failure as well as business achievements. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, business failures had become commonplace. One successful employer, perhaps gloating a bit, recalled that in the 1860s it had become "fashionable" to operate a printing firm, leading to an excessively competitive environment in which many enterprises collapsed.^[41] Such failures were especially frequent during periods of economic slowdown, as in the 1880s and again after the turn of the century. Of the 149 private printing firms under the supervision of the Petersburg press inspector in 1875, only 97 still existed in 1883, and only 33 were left by 1900.^[42]

Competition led also to harsh practices to survive, especially by smaller, more economically marginal firms. Owners cut prices to attract orders, used cheaper materials, and, most relevant to the concerns of this study, squeezed workers to produce more for less pay. To sustain lower prices, profit margins were sometimes reduced even to the point of accepting work below cost solely to ruin the competition.^[43] In the view of many contemporaries, competition had produced a "desperate struggle between printing shop owners,"^[44] which, it was feared, was "undermining public confidence and leading to the decay of the printing trade."^[45] The capitalist transformation of the industry was not viewed as progress by many ordinary business owners.

[40] Voznesenskii, Sto let Ekspeditsii zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag , pp. 23– 40; Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' , vol. 9, p. 53; Mikhailovskii, Ekspeditsiia zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag , pp. 33–35; Novyi entsiklopedicheskii slovar' , vol. 13, p. 917. For other examples, see discussions about A. V. Gavrilov of the Synod press in TsGIA, f. 800, op. 1, dd. 92, 176, 338, 457, and in Gavrilov, Ocherk istorii Sankt-Peterburgskoi sinodal'noi tipografii; A. I. Iakovlev of the State press in Pechatnoe iskusstvo 1:6 (March 1902), p. 186; and S. I. Nedel'kovich of the Naval Ministry press in Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 4:11 (June 1900), p. 179.

[41] Pechatnia R. R. Golike , p. 3.

[42] Spisok zavedenii pechati v S.-Peterburge (1875); Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik , August 14 (26), 1883, p. 3; Spisok zavedenii pechati v S.-Peterburge (1900); Pogozhev, Adresnaia kniga , pp. 113–15.

[43] Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 145–47, 185–88, 195; 400 let , p. 367; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 7 (April 15), p. 50; 1881, no. 1 (January 1), p. 1; Russkii kur'er , September 14, 1883, p. 2; Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 2:5 (May 1897), p. 66; Naborshchik 1:1 (October 20, 1902), p. 19; 1:50 (October 12, 1903), p. 749; Russkoe obshchestvo deiatelei pechatnogo dela, Moskovskoe otdelenie [henceforth, RODPD-MO], Kratkii otchet o deiatel'nosti za 1902–3 , p. 4; Bakhtiarov, Slugi pechati , p. 47.

[44] Vestnik graficheskogo dela 1 (March 14, 1897), p. 3.

[45] Trudy pervogo s"ezda , pp. 44–45.

Labor

Central to these perceptions of decline was the image of degraded labor. Many press owners, publishers, booksellers, journalists, and others concerned with the printing industry viewed commercialization and market competition as causing a "terrible decline in wages" and generally having a "ruinous effect" on labor.^[46] In fact, this decline was more complex than it was sometimes portrayed by contemporaries, whose harsh judgments of their surroundings, as shall be seen, often reflected images of what ought to be more than of what once was. There was indeed a ruinous decline in the condition of labor in printing, but it was manifested much more as a structural transformation of work than as degradation in the lives of individual workers.

The traditional world of skilled labor in printing broke apart during the mid-nineteenth century under the pressures of industrial expansion, mechanization, and the pursuit of profit in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Before the nineteenth century, most printing workers were either immigrant European craftsmen or the children—recruited as apprentices—of urban artisans (including printers), merchants, or government employees.^[47] Almost all were skilled hand workers, trained in a craft that had changed little since the seventeenth century. The work process and division of labor remained in 1818 much the same as it had been in 1618: compositors (naborshchiki ) hand-set the type; pressmen (teredorshchiki ) locked the type into place and operated the hand press, and inkers (batyrshchiki ) inked the form and assisted the pressmen.^[48] This traditional order was quickly eroded by innovations that began in the mid-1800s.

Machine work facilitated the creation of new, relatively unskilled crafts in the pressroom.^[49] The typical flat-bed cylinder press was worked by three or four men. In charge of the work of the press was a

[46] Russkii kur'er , September 14, 1883, p. 2; Trudy pervogo s"ezda , pp. 44–45. See also Vestnik graficheskogo dela 1 (March 14, 1897), p. 3; 2 (March 21, 1897), pp. 12–13; Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 2:5 (May 1897), p. 66; Naborshchik 1:22 (March 30, 1903), p. 365; 1:50 (October 12, 1903), p. 749; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 185–86.

[47] Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 59–61, 79–83, 108; Tipografiia Lenizdata , p. 9; Zakharov, "Svedeniia o nekotorykh peterburgskikh tipografiiakh," p. 75; Iuferovyi and Sokolovskii, Akademicheskaia tipografiia , pp. 48–49.

[48] Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 53–59, 85.

[49] Good descriptions of the work process in the pressroom can be found in Bakhtiarov, Slugi pechati , pp. 38–42; Kolomnin, Kratkie svedeniia po tipografskomu delu , pp. 554–60; Trotskii, "Ekonomicheskie i sanitarnye usloviia," part 1, pp. 73–76; 400 let , p. 367.

skilled master printer (known as pechatnyi master , or, reflecting the mechanization of the process, mashinyi master or simply mashinist ). He acted in the role of both foreman and worker. As worker, he "made ready" the press much as a hand pressman would: securing the type form, packing the impression cylinder to assure even pressure against the type, examining a first proof, and then adjusting the type, cylinder packing, and inking mechanism to assure a clear and clean impression. As foreman, he supervised the work of other press workers, trained new recruits, and in some cases hired and paid workers himself. Depending on the size of a firm and on the involvement of the owner or manager in the operations of the pressroom, the master printer's authority might extend to several presses, leaving assistant masters to do much of the direct press work.

The master printer supervised less skilled press workers: "press feeders" or "layers-on" (nakladchiki ), who placed individual sheets of paper into position as the grippers on the cylinder approached to seize the paper and press it against the type for printing, and "takers-off" (priemshchiki ), who removed the printed sheets and placed them on a pile.^[50] When the job was finished, these press helpers would clean the machine and periodically oil it. In addition, on presses not powered by motors, a laborer (the vertel'shchik ) would turn the heavy flywheel that moved the cylinder. For some traditionalists, accustomed to the old identity of the printer as a skilled worker, these semi-skilled and unskilled workers could not be considered true printers at all. An editorial in the journal of the printing profession stated bluntly in 1878 that "our inkers, press feeders, takers-off, and crankmen cannot properly speaking be called typographic workers."^[51]

The decay of apprenticeship, which accompanied these changes in work organization, reinforced this separation of common press workers from the craft traditions of the skilled printer. By the late nineteenth century, uneducated peasant boys of twelve or thirteen—often younger before the child labor legislation of 1882—were typically hired as takers-off, performing work that required little or no skill. Some became press feeders, which required greater dexterity and accuracy, es-

[50] Whenever the contemporary English or American equivalents of Russian printing terminology, as here, closely match the meanings of the Russian, I use these terms. When they do not, as in the case of machine masters —who were known in England as machine overseers or machine minders , depending on their degree of authority—I have chosen a more literal translation. I use the term compositor rather than the more familiar typesetter , as compositor was the term in common use in American English prior to the mechanization of typesetting.

[51] Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 13 (July 15), p. 95.

pecially when printing multiple colors or on both sides of a sheet. As a press feeder, a young worker might receive something like a true apprenticeship, learning the process of "make-ready" and other skills that, given sufficient ability and good fortune, might lead to his becoming a master printer. But many press feeders received no more training than was necessary to perform their assigned task. In addition, in order to bypass the restrictions imposed by the labor legislation of 1882, employers often preferred to hire older youths, aged seventeen or eighteen, with no intention of training them to become masters. Even on hand presses, peasant boys were often hired ostensibly as "apprentices" but received no instruction beyond the simplest tasks of an inker. Press workers themselves also abused apprenticeship. Given the high demand for labor, many young press feeders found that they could quit their apprenticeships after a year or two and find better-paying jobs in shops willing to hire half-trained workmen in order to lower production costs.^[52]

In type composition too, as early as the 1860s, observers began to speak of a "decline" in the "art" and to point to the supplanting of real craftsmen by "undisciplined, drunken, and insolent" workers "of only average skill, producing bad work."^[53] Mechanization, however, was not a direct factor, since type composition remained a hand craft until after the turn of the century. But even without typesetting machines, the pressures of increasing demand, the shortage of skilled labor, and the competition to keep prices down conspired against the skill standards of compositors.

The erosion of skill in type composition began at its source in apprenticeship. Notwithstanding proposals that new apprentices be accepted only after an examination to ensure sufficient education and that employers not be allowed to hire a journeyman without proper attestation of completed apprenticeship (as had once been the case),^[54] both

[52] Ibid. 1880, no. 17 (August 30), p. 127; Trudy pervogo s"ezda , pp. 37–38; Naborshchik 1:15 (February 9, 1903), p. 255; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 43; Svavitskii and Sher, Ocherk polozheniia , pp. 10–11, 43–44; Sher, Istoriia , p. 57; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy , pp. 268–71.

[53] Tipograftskii zhurnal 2:1 (July 1, 1868), p. 2; Vestnik graficheskogo dela 17–18 (September 25, 1897), p. 176; Tipograftskii zhurnal 2:3 (August 1, 1868), p. 10. See also Tipografskii zhurnal 1:12 (December 15, 1867), p. 52, and 2:2 (July 15, 1868), p. 6; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 6 (April 1), p. 41; 1882, no. 10 (May 15), p. 64; Pervaia russkaia shkola, 1884–1894 , p. 6; Peterburgskaia gazeta , April 24, 1894, p. 3 (interview with R. Golike).

[54] For example, Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 6 (April 1), p. 41; Trudy pervogo s"ezda , pp. 27–37; Biulleten' RODPD 1:11 (November 1902), p. 84; Naborshchik 1:6 (December 8, 1902), p. 107.

recruitment standards and training deteriorated. The number of peasant children among compositors grew rapidly and approached a majority, though even after the rapid growth of the labor force at the end of the nineteenth century many apprentice compositors were recruited as before from among the children of small shopkeepers, artisans, workers, garrison soldiers, and other lower-class city dwellers.^[55] This urban plebeian element among compositors was declining, but it was still larger than among most other groups of workers, even other printing workers.^[56] Standards of education were also declining. Printing firms increasingly accepted as apprentice compositors youths whose literacy hardly exceeded the ability to recognize the letters of the alphabet. Already in the 1860s, a middle-aged compositor complained that "many enter into apprenticeship hardly able to read or write in Russian, to say nothing of foreign languages."^[57] Still, at least minimal literacy was necessary; many apprentice compositors had attended at least a year or two at a rural or urban primary school, and some had begun secondary education.^[58]

In the shops, the training of compositors had declined. One employer complained in 1895 that in many firms apprenticeship had in fact become little more than child labor, a means to get "convenient and compliant material for producing work at low prices such as could not be achieved with adult workers."^[59] Many firms also hired

[55] Naborshchik 1:3 (November 17, 1902), pp. 53–54; Pechatnoe iskusstvo 2:3 (December 1902), p. 98.

[56] Exact calculation of urban birth is difficult. Census data record that in Moscow in 1902, 38.6% of compositors were born in the city, compared to 18.7% of press workers in typographic shops and 13.1% in lithographic enterprises. Throughout all industry, by contrast, only 10.5% of workers were born in Moscow. Perepis' Moskvy 1902 goda , vypusk 2, table 6. The 1881 Petersburg census indicates that 37.8% of typographic workers and 16.1% of lithographic workers were born in the city, compared to 11.7% for all industrial and trade workers; the census does not provide separate information on compositors. S.-Peterburg po perepisi 15 dekabria 1881 goda , vol. 1, part 2, pp. 306–07. Unfortunately, available data do not indicate whether individuals not born in the city in which they resided were born in other cities , a background that was likely to have been relatively common among compositors, given their high rates of geographic mobility. A survey conducted in Moscow in 1907 found that nearly a third of all compositors had lived and worked at some time in another city. Svavitskii and Sher, Ocherk polozheniia , pp. 11–14. Most likely, the total number of urban-born compositors was rather higher than the census figures indicate.

[57] Tipografskii zhurnal 1:12 (December 15, 1867), p. 52.

[58] Otchet po pervoi shkole pechatnogo dela I.R.T.O. za 1885–6 uchebnyi god , p. 6; Naborshchik 1:14 (February 2, 1903), p. 241; Solov'ev, Gosudar'ev pechatnyi dvor , p. 101; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 13; Svavitskii and Sher, Ocherk polozheniia , table 2. By contrast, many press workers were illiterate when hired and often remained so. Trudy pervogo s"ezda , p. 37; Naborshchik 1:15 (February 9, 1903), p. 255.

[59] Trudy pervogo s"ezda , p. 27.

nedouchki —"half-way boys," as they were called by American printers in the nineteenth century—who had quit their low-paying apprenticeships in order to earn journeymen's wages after learning only the simple mechanics of setting a line of plain type. The majority of compositors were simple line compositors (strochnye ) who could only set plain text. Above them were highly skilled specialists: design, table, and job compositors (aktsidentnye, tablichnye, and melochnye naborshchiki ).

Finally, as in the pressroom, this new hierarchy of skill included an occupation—that of the metranpazh —whose role was an ambiguous mix of worker and supervisor. As a worker, the metranpazh (a Russification of metteur en pages ) was responsible for the final imposition of the type and for locking up these pages of type into forms for printing. Before the 1830s, this job had been well-paying work delegated by the workers themselves to older compositors. By the end of the century, employers had eliminated this form of worker control of the labor process, and metranpazhi were chosen only by the owner or manager. At the same time, the responsibilities of the metranpazh often expanded to that of foreman: he was often responsible for the discipline of "his" compositors (in larger shops there were several metranpazhi , each with his own work group), for the distribution of copy, for calculating the payment of wages, for training apprentices, and occasionally even for hiring and firing workers. Some metranpazhi acted as subcontractors, accepting an entire job at a negotiated price and undertaking full responsibility for hiring, supervising, and paying compositors—workers named the worst of these "spiders."^[60]

The changing role of the metranpazh reflected the changing division of labor and work process in type composition, but it did not indicate the complete loss of workers' autonomy. Payment by the piece (per thousand letters set) and the individualized structure of the work process made supervisory control of compositors impractical. Fines for breaches of discipline, common among factory workers and even press workers, rarely existed.^[61] The speed and manner of work remained, quite literally, in a compositor's own hands. Some compositors added a collective dimension to this workplace control, creating small "companies" (kompanii ) that negotiated with an employer for the price of an entire job and then handled all questions of payment, discipline, and

[60] Trotskii, "Ekonomicheskie i sanitarnye usloviia," part 1, pp. 84–85; Bakhtiarov, Slugi pechati , pp. 34–35; Kolomnin, Kratkie svedeniia , pp. 66–67, 388–465; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 29; Tipografiia Lenizdata , p. 12; Vechtomova, Zdes' pechatalas' "Pravda," p. 25.

[61] Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , p. 37.

work process internally. At many newspapers, compositors decided among themselves—usually by lot—who would set illegible texts, who would work late, who would be assigned to break down and distribute the used type in the morning, how vacation days would be distributed, and when and how workers would be punished for truancy.^[62]

Wage rates in printing reflected these changes in the skill structure of the industry, though complicated by the influence of where one worked.^[63] Printing masters and metranpazhi , who stood on the border between labor and management, received the highest wages in the industry, together with office personnel such as proofreaders and bookkeepers, and a few highly skilled craftsmen in lithographic firms. Beneath these stood compositors (whose average wage was still above the average industrial wage in Russia), followed by press workers. In any given craft, however, wages ranged widely. Lower than average wages were paid to workers in smaller and economically more marginal enterprises, where, it was said, the competitive strategy was "cheap and dirty" (deshevo , da plokho ). Such shops were also the most inclined to abuse apprenticeship, often employing more "apprentices" than adults, or even relying exclusively on the labor of boys under the direction of a single skilled adult.^[64] By contrast, large enterprises (and firms specializing in quality work) often paid better wages and were more attentive to proper training.

As a result of these discrepancies, a printing master in St. Petersburg in 1900 might earn as much as 150 rubles a month or as little as 40 rubles. Similarly, a press feeder could earn as much as 30 rubles a month and a taker-up as much as 20 rubles, though many earned as little as 10 rubles or less. In many small printing shops at the turn of the century, compositors were paid piece rates of only 14 kopecks

[62] Ibid., pp. 11–12, 28–32, 37, 43; TsGAOR, f. 6864, op. 1, d. 60, pp. 1, 3; Naborshchik 1:1 (October 20, 1902), p. 4; 1:13 (January 26, 1903), p. 213; 1:14 (February 2, 1903), p. 233; Iuferovyi and Sokolovskii, Akademicheskaia tipografiia , pp. 93–94; Kratkii istoricheskii obzor tipografii L.S.P.O. , p. 9.

[63] The following discussion of wages is based on professional journals, firm publications, and a number of scholarly studies, the most useful of which were Mikhailovskii, Otchet za 1885 god glavnogo fabrichnogo inspektora , pp. 189–90; Davydov, Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnogo inspektora , pp. 172–73; Trotskii, "Ekonomicheskie i sanitarnye usloviia," part 1, pp. 76–86; Bernshtein-Kogan, Chislennost' , pp. 111–12, 182–86; Svavitskii and Sher, Ocherk polozheniia , pp. 19–21; and Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , pp. 10–46.

[64] Tipografskii zhurnal 2:3 (August 1, 1868), p. 9; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 7 (April 15), p. 47; Russkii kur'er , September 14, 1883, p. 2; Davydov, Otchet za 1885 g. fabrichnogo inspektora , pp. 72–78; Peterburgskaia gazeta , November 29, 1894, p. 3; Trudy pervogo s"ezda , pp. 27, 37–38, 44–45; Naborshchik 1:1 (October 20, 1902), p. 19; 1:50 (October 12, 1903), p. 749; Sher, Istoriia , p. 55; Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza , pp. 59–60.

per thousand letters set—even less if they were minors—while at a large and quality-oriented printing plant such as Suvorin's, which sought to attract the most highly skilled workers, the pay was 18 to 26 kopecks per thousand letters for book work, depending on the complexity of the material, and up to 23 kopecks for newspaper work.^[65] A compositor thus might earn as little as 17 rubles a month or as much as 75. Wage levels also varied by city and were generally lower in Moscow than in St. Petersburg and even lower in the provinces.^[66]

In general terms, then, one can speak of a deskilling of the Russian typographic printer (and of the lithographer and binder, whose crafts were also transformed) as a consequence of commercialization and technical modernization. However, this was more a structural phenomenon than an individual human experience. In Western Europe, skilled printing workers were often able to avoid the destructive consequences of similar changes because of strong traditions of collective association and struggle.^[67] Russian printers lacked such organizations and did not collectively resist this transformation of the industry, but most printers nonetheless individually avoided the experience of skill degradation. The rapid expansion of production, the growing need for supervisors, and the persistent shortage of skilled labor encouraged firms to accommodate and even promote workers with well-developed skills, while filling the lower ranks with a mass of new recruits. A highly skilled pressman could usually find a well-paying job on one of the remaining hand presses, where specialized work was still done, or as a machine master. A highly skilled compositor could often find employment as a specialist setting complex tabular or display work, which paid considerably more than simple line composition, and many were promoted to metranpazh or even production manager (faktor or zaveduiishchii ).^[68] The ranks of simple line compositors, press feeders,

[65] Kratkii ocherk izdatel'skoi deiatel'nosti A. S. Suvorina, p. 10.

[66] In 1900, average earnings among printers were more than 20% higher in St. Petersburg than in Moscow, and more than 5% higher in Moscow than the nationwide average. Varzar, Statisticheskie svedeniia, pp. 10–13; Bernshtein-Kogan, Chislennost', p. 183; Svavitskii and Sher, Ocherk polozheniia, p. 19.

[67] See, for example, Shorter and Tilly, Strikes in France, pp. 148–49, 204–05, 346.

[68] For a number of examples, see Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 17 (September 15), p. 129; Obzor pervoi vserossiiskoi vystavki pechatnogo dela 29 (May 29, 1895), p. 7; Graficheskie iskusstva i bumazhnaia promyshlennost' 1:11 (July 1896), p. 174; 2:2 (January 1897), p. 31; Vestnik graficheskogo dela 25 (January 31, 1898), p. 2; Pechatnoe iskusstvo 1:1 (October 1901), p. 27; 1:2 (November 1901), pp. 61, 63; 2:3 (December 1902), p. 108; Naborshchik 1:1 (October 20, 1902), p. 18; 2:10 (February 1, 1904), pp. 170–71; 2:45 (October 3, 1904), p. 710; Lisovskii, Kratkii ocherk tipografii Glazunovykh, p. 92; Pechatnia R. R. Golike, p. 3; Ivan Dmitrievich Galaktionov, 12/II/1915.

signature folders, and the like were filled not with deskilled craftsmen but with the children of peasants and other workers entering the industry for the first time. The image of the degraded artisan suffering the effects of industrial modernization is simply not appropriate here. Though skills were indeed falling, individuals were not.

This is not to say that individuals did not suffer. Wages, though widely varying, were for most insufficient to avoid cramped living conditions and a meager diet. A government commission studying working conditions in St. Petersburg from 1902 to 1905 calculated that an unmarried male worker needed a minimum of 21 rubles a month to cover living expenses and a married worker with children needed 32 rubles, even if other family members were employed (considering the lower wages earned by women and children). Other surveys drew the poverty line even higher.^[69] At work, considerable hardship resulted not only from the long workday and harassment by foremen and managers, but simply from the physical environment in which printers labored, though these conditions were not uniform. Small printing shops were the most ruinous to a worker's health. Often located in the basements or half-basements of buildings, they were usually the most poorly ventilated and lit, hot and stuffy in the summer and in the winter producing a "grave-like cold."^[70] By contrast, some large firms installed modern ventilation, replaced kerosene lighting with cleaner electric lighting, attached protective devices to machinery, opened dining halls so that workers might eat in a clean environment, and insisted on regular sanitary measures to keep the workplace clean.^[71] Most enterprises lay somewhere between these extremes.

Each craft presented the health of printing workers with its own special hazards. Typographic pressmen, for example, inhaled the fumes of inks and solvents and risked injury from exposed gears, pulleys, and belts on machinery. Lithographers breathed large amounts of stone dust and chemical fumes. Type compositors worked in the most deadly environment, breathing air filled with lead dust and often thick with tobacco smoke and the stench of the shop toilet and straining their eyes

[69] Semanov, Peterburgskie rabochie, p. 85. See also Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg, p. 25, and Kir'ianov, Zhiznennyi uroven' , esp. pp. 168–90, 259–62.

[70] Naborshchik 1:5 (December 1, 1902), p. 88; Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1878, no. 7 (April 15), p. 47; Trotskii, "Ekonomicheskie i sanitarnye usloviia," part 2, p. 93.

[71] The most notable examples were, in Moscow, the Synod press, Levenson's after 1900, and Moskovskii listok after 1894, and in St. Petersburg, the Synod press, the Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper after 1899, Suvorin's after 1900, and the Senate press after 1901.

reading often illegible manuscripts under poor lighting. Because they stood for nine or more hours a day with one arm held close to the chest to hold the composing stick and the opposite arm and shoulder raised to reach type from the case, they strained their legs and backs and suffered from lack of physical exertion that made their breathing shallow, slowed their circulation, and thus left them susceptible to disease. According to physicians who studied compositors, their ailments included trembling of the hands, swelling of the legs, varicose veins, rheumatism, skeletal deformities, nearsightedness, chronic conjunctivitis, lung disease, lead poisoning, and especially tuberculosis. Although lead poisoning was rarely a direct cause of death, it produced anemia, digestive ailments (worsened by workers' high consumption of alcohol and poor diet), hardening of the arteries, and generally increased susceptibility to disease.

The single most deadly effect of the compositors' work was tuberculosis. Easily transmitted in the dusty and unsanitary environment of the workplace, it attacked systems often already weakened by lead poisoning, poor nutrition, heavy drinking, and other diseases. Tuberculosis was widespread among compositors, audible in the constant coughing and expectoration heard in the composition room (which further spread the disease) and visible in workers' common paleness and emaciation. With good reason, the labor of the compositor was often described as "murderous." One study by a provincial physician in the 1890s found that the mortality rates of compositors were among the highest of all workers. Other studies, in Russia and elsewhere, confirmed his conclusions.^[72] Most compositors died before they were forty, and many did not survive past their twenties.^[73]

Workplace and craft may have been the most decisive determinants of working-class experience, but workers also lived in a larger social world. Most printing workers lived near the shops in which they

[72] Sviatlovskii, Truzheniki pechatnogo dela . This was a reprint of a study that originally appeared in Zemskii vrach . Quoted in Obzor pervoi vserossiiskoi vystavki 9 (March 20, 1895), p. 4.

[73] Trotskii, "Ekonomicheskie i sanitarnye usloviia," part 2, pp. 87–106; Virenius, "Gigiena naborshchika"; Trudy pervogo s"ezda, pp. 52–53 (report of Dr. E. R. Mossin); Russkie vedomosti, August 10, 1894, p. 3; Obzor pervoi vserossiiskoi vystavki 9 (March 20, 1895), pp. 4–5; Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo s"ezda fabrichnykh vrachei (Moscow, 1910), vol. 1, pp. 119–26 (report of P. V. Beliaevskii); Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' , vol. 33, pp. 216–20 (F. Erisman); Istoriia leningradskogo soiuza, pp. 49–54; Orlov, Poligraficheskaia promyshlennost' Moskvy, pp. 267–68; Tipografiia Lenizdata, pp. 23–24. For a comparative perspective, see Obzor graficheskikh iskusstv 1879, no. 6 (March 15), pp. 44–45 (essay by "Amicus," based on German studies), and Hamilton and Verrill, Hygiene of the Printing Trades .

worked,^[74] and this is where workers spent most of their rather limited free time. Memoirs of workers describe visiting local taverns and beer halls, frequenting the local bathhouse on Saturdays, attending the local church on holidays, and purchasing food and other necessities from local shopkeepers. Although memoirs recall holiday excursions out of town to fish, swim, or walk in the woods, apart from some workers' rare visits to public literary readings, lectures, or concerts, workers apparently seldom frequented other parts of the city (unless they changed jobs).

Like workers in most artisanal manufacturing and commerce, the printers' neighborhood was the inner city. As the industry expanded and larger plants were built, enterprises and workers' residences became more dispersed, but only relatively so. In St. Petersburg in 1881, 76 percent of printing workers lived in the five centermost districts of the city (Admiralteiskaia, Kazanskaia, Spasskaia, Liteinaia, Moskovskaia) and across the Neva on Vasil'evskii Island; by comparison, only 44 percent of metal and machine workers lived in these districts. By 1900, though only 51 percent of printing workers still lived in these same districts, most of the others lived nearby in the innermost wards of the Narvskaia district, where the massive Office for the Manufacture of Government Paper was located. Less than 8 percent of all printing workers lived in the heavily industrial Aleksandro-Nevskaia and Vyborgskaia districts, a growing but still relatively small proportion, and virtually none in the city's industrial suburbs.^[75]

In Moscow, similarly, half of all printing workers in 1890 resided within the innermost of the city's central rings; the slightly wider range defined by the circular boulevards, where the concentric walls of the old city once stood, encompassed more than two-thirds of the residences of all printing workers. By contrast, more than three-quarters of

[74] This is suggested by memoirs as well as by the high correlation between the location of the workplaces and the residences of printing workers. Spisok zavedenii pechati (1875); S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1881 goda, vol. 1, part 2; Torgovo-promyshlennye zavedeniia Moskvy v 1885–1890 gg., pp. 16–19, 26–29; Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik, December 11(23), 1894, p. 4; S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1900 goda, vypusk 2, p. 12; Spisok fabrik i zavodov (1903), pp. 150–55; Ginlein, Adresnaia kniga, pp. 80–91; Pogozhev, Adresnaia kniga, pp. 104–08, 113–15. Detailed calculations based on these sources may be found in my "Consciousness and Conflict in a Russian Industry," tables 5.3 and 5.4. Contiguous patterns of work and residence were common among Russian workers generally in the two capitals. Bater, St. Petersburg, pp. 128–39, 280–95; Bradley, Muzhik and Muscovite, pp. 232–34.

[75] Spisok zavedenii pechati (1875); Pravitel'stvennyi vestnik, December 11 (23), 1894, p. 4; Ginlein, Adresnaia kniga, pp. 80–86; S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1881 goda, vol. 1, part 2; S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1900 goda, vypusk 2. See also Zelnik, Labor and Society, pp. 215–20, 231–34; and Bater, St. Petersburg, pp. 91–110, 228–54.

all manufacturing workers—including 80 percent of all metal workers and 97 percent of all textile workers—lived beyond the boulevards or across the river. Gradually, large printing plants grew up in these outer districts, and workers' residency patterns shifted with them, yet the move was never very far. By 1900, although 42 percent of printing workers were employed outside of the boulevards or across the river, they worked mostly in neighborhoods nearest the center.^[76]

Life in the city center meant exposure to both hardships and social and cultural diversity. In St. Petersburg, the largest concentration of printing workers was found in the districts and wards surrounding the Haymarket, the worst inner-city neighborhood—overcrowded, unsanitary, and full of disease and crime. Other residents of these districts included shopkeepers, artisanal masters, and owners of small manufactories, but mainly the poor: artisans, commercial employees, itinerant laborers, service workers, prostitutes, vagrants, and petty thieves. Printers also lived nearby in such neighborhoods as the less congested and more fashionable commercial districts beside the Nevskii Prospect or across the Nevskii in predominantly upper-class residential neighborhoods. But there they typically lived crowded together with other workers in upper floors, garrets, or cellars or around the corner in an alley or side street.^[77]

In Moscow, too, most printers lived in the densely populated and socially diverse central districts of the city. As in St. Petersburg, the lower classes of the inner city included few industrial workers but large numbers of tailors, shoemakers, bakers, cabinetmakers, goldsmiths, printers, salesclerks, servants, waiters, peddlers, prostitutes, and the casual laborers, vagrants, paupers, and criminals of Moscow's notorious skid row, the Khitrov market. And as in St. Petersburg, these central districts also included fashionable shops and restaurants, the university and the conservatory, theaters and government offices, and the residences of the rich and powerful as well as more modest professionals, writers, artists, merchants, and entrepreneurs.^[78]

[76] Torgovo-promyshlennye zavedeniia goroda Moskvy v 1885–1890 gg., pp. 16–19, 26–29; Spisok fabrik i zavodov, pp. 150–55; Ginlein, Adresnaia kniga, pp. 86–91; Pogozhev, Adresnaia kniga, pp. 104–08. See also Bradley, Muzhik and Muscovite, pp. 52–60.

[77] Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg, pp. 38–43; Zelnik, Labor and Society, pp. 242–43; Bater, St. Petersburg, pp. 166–67, 173–75, 193–207, 342–53, 373–80, 401–06; S.-Peterburg po perepisi 1881 goda, vol. 1, part 1, and part 2, map 5 and table 1.

[78] Bradley, Muzhik and Muscovite, pp. 53–55,273–81; Laura Engelstein, Moscow, 1905, pp. 43–46; Torgovo-promyshlennye zavedeniia, table 1 and maps 2–7; Statisticheskii atlas goroda Moskvy, pp. 55–58, 63–64.

It has been suggested that the greater visibility of inequality in the center of the city helped to promote "class consciousness" among workers living there.^[79] With equal logic it has been argued that the closer "spatial relationships among classes" of the inner city tended to narrow the social distance between classes and hence to moderate class antagonisms.^[80] Ultimately, other experiences and other influences would decide how these ambiguous circumstances would be perceived and made meaningful. This was generally true of the structured conditions in which workers lived. Mechanization and a deepening division of labor had obliterated some crafts, marginalized others, created new unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, and made apprenticeship in many cases little more than a veil for child labor. However, individual workers with traditional skills often found opportunities for advancement, while the less skilled jobs were filled mainly by peasants and others entering the industry for the first time. At a certain level, there was no ambiguity in workers' position. Most workers, whatever the relative changes in their condition, remained subordinate and poor and faced long hours of daily labor in a murderous physical environment. Still, the definition of these conditions as unjust depended on matters of perception that the structures themselves did not determine.

[79] Smith, Red Petrograd, p. 13.

[80] Koenker, Moscow Workers, pp. 10, 28.