David MANDEL (1947 - )

Professeur titulaire, département de sciences politique, UQÀM

“OCTOBER
IN THE IVANOVO-KINESHMA
INDUSTRIAL REGION.”

In Revolution in Russia : reassessments of 1917. Edited by Edith Rogovin Frankel, Jonathan Frankel, Baruch Knei-Paz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Cambridge, New York, Port Chester, Melbourne, Sydney, 1992, Cambridge university press, pp. 157-187.

The Ivanovo-Kineshma textile region was located 250 kilometres northeast of Moscow. It embraced the three southeastern districts of Kostroma province and the three north-central districts of Vladimir province. In 1917, approximately 150,000 factory workers were employed in the region, 93 per cent of these in the cotton industry. [1]

The region’s workers were known for their militancy and almost exclusive allegiance to Bolshevism. This they displayed on numerous occasions in elections - to the State Duma before the war ; and to the soviets, factory committees, trade unions, local governments and the Constituent Assembly in 1917. [2] Not even among the skilled metalworkers of Petrograd’s ‘red Vyborg’ district, did the Bolsheviks enjoy such unshakable hegemony.

Such radicalism was unusual in Russia’s textile industry, in which the workers were characterised by a low literacy rate, low wages and skills, a predominance of women and significant ties with the land. [3] But other traits, peculiar to the workers of the Ivanovo-Kineshma region, fostered a strong class-consciousness and opposition to the propertied classes and their political parties.

According to the industrial census of 1918, an average of 825 workers worked in each of the region’s factories, as opposed to 388 in Petrograd and 176 in Moscow. This was the highest concentration in the whole of Russia. [4] Socially, these workers were a remarkably homogeneous group: almost all were unskilled, low-paid textile workers, recruited from the local and adjacent districts. A significant proportion owned land (36 per cent according to the 1918 census), but one- third were at least second-generation factory workers, and almost two- thirds had been employed in factory work since before the war. Even among those who owned land, factory wages were the main source of income. Many workers clung to their villages although the rural [158] economy there had all but died, because housing at the mills was scarce. [5]

But it was especially the combination of these traits with one other - the extreme polarisation of local society - that accounts for Bolshevik strength. Typical of the region were the ‘mill villages’, settlements of an urban character that had grown up in the villages surrounding the mills. Sereda, a town of 16,659 inhabitants, which as early as the eighteenth century had been known as a prosperous trading village, was the site of three large textile mills employing 12,000 workers. For three-quarters of these, Sereda was the sole and permanent place of residence. Ivanovo-Voznesensk, the largest town in the region, was itself, in fact, only the largest ‘mill village’, one that had grown into a city of 85,000 inhabitants. [6] Virtually absent here was the intermediate social stratum, the so-called ‘third element’ that consisted of employees of local government and members of the liberal professions. Educated society here, what little there was of it, was closely tied to capital, both economically and politically, and so hostile to the labour movement. This had always been the case, even during the 1905 revolution. As for socialist intellectuals who might venture in from the outside, they were easily picked out in this homogeneous social milieu and soon arrested. [7]

The mill owners were for the most part descendants of local peasants. They lived in the region (but usually had second homes in Moscow) and until the revolution held the reins of local power firmly in their hands. ‘Nowhere have I seen so naked and blatant a contrast between misery and luxury’, recalled a Bolshevik visitor to Ivanovo in 1907. ‘Without any camouflage, without any intermediate strata, the two sides stood facing each other : labour and capital. It was more than clear why we Bolsheviks, though we had scarcely any organisation, did not have any competition from the Mensheviks or SRs.’ [8]

In contrast to the situation in the capitals, the workers here did not immediately perceive the October revolution and the transfer of power in the capital as a watershed. The first collective agreement signed here did not include 25 October in the list of holidays, although the Day of the Revolution’, 27 February, figured prominently. [9]

In part, this was because the workers in this region had already held de facto power since well before October. In almost all the industrial centres, the Bolsheviks had long since won majorities in the soviets, and the soviets controlled the only armed forces - the garrisons and the Red Guards. [10] In a number of places, following elections by universal suffrage to the organs of local self-government (dumas and [159] zemstvos) towards the beginning of September, the Bolsheviks won power de jure also. In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, they received 56.5 per cent of the vote. They also won majorities in elections in the city and district of Shuia, the district of Iurevets, the town of Rodniki, as well as in many smaller rural districts (volosti). In other local governments, the Bolsheviks formed large minorities. [11]

The Provisional Government was without influence in the region. A meeting of the Society of Factory and Mills Owners in October discussed reports of workers’organisations’ requisitioning food, stopping the shipment of goods and even replacing managerial personnel. The society took note of the widespread regime of ‘seizures, violence and arbitrariness that is encouraged by the powerlessness of the central and local legal authorities’. [12]

But the transfer of power in Petrograd was also not perceived as a watershed because it had little immediate practical relevance to the workers’ most urgent concern — a living wage. Their economic situation was desperate. Wages here had always been among the lowest in Russia and the raises won following the February revolution had long since been eaten up by inflation. But although the workers held effective political power, there was no way they could use it to wring a living wage out of mill owners who would rather shut their mills than make concessions - unless the workers were prepared to accept the eventuality of managing the mills themselves. In October, they were still not ready to face this.

As for the owners, they were fast losing their interest in production. By the beginning of September, twelve large mills employing 30,000 workers had been shut, and the number of unemployed was growing daily. [13] The owners cited shortages of fuel and materials, but the workers accused them of malicious negligence, and their own organisations moved in to fill the void left by management. Swift action by the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Soviet, for example, had allowed the town’s mills, in danger of closing, to quadruple their fuel supply. Commenting on the situation, the executive of the soviet noted :

It has reached the point where the entire region's production is being stopped, while wagons and tankers stand idle on sidings for months at a time awaiting repairs that should take no more than a few days. This shows the industrialists' desire to disorganise production, and, by stopping the mills, to crush the entire organisation of our democracy. [14]

[160]

Nor was this opinion limited to the workers’organisations. The Factory Conference of the Moscow Industrial Region, a governmental body, pointed to the ‘deliberate refusal of the owners of industrial enterprises to pursue production in the factories and mills, even when the Factory Conference established the possibility of doing so’. [15]

For these reasons, the October revolution in the Ivanovo-Kineshma region took the form of a general strike for a minimum wage tied to the cost of living. During the strike the workers did indeed seize the mills - nut to run them, but to prevent sabotage by the owners. The news of the October insurrection in Petrograd was greeted with enthusiasm by the region’s workers. They themselves began calling for action of this kind soon after the February revolution. The Teikovo Soviet of Workers’ Deputies (representing the 6,000 workers of the Karetnikova Mill) passed such a resolution on 24 April, two months before the workers’section of the Petrograd Soviet, in response to the note of the Foreign Minister, Miliukov, to the allies expressing the Provisional Government’s intention to honour the annexationist treaties signed by the Tsar. The workers’ deputies vowed by their ‘fraternal blood to come out to aid the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets at their first call’. [16] The soviets and the other workers’ organisations of Ivanovo-Voznesensk and all other industrial centres soon followed suit. [17]

Here there was none of the attentisme that characterised broad segments of the working class in Petrograd on the eve of the insurrection. Largely because of this mood in the capital, the Bolshevik leaders (though not Lenin) linked the coming insurrection to the Soviet Congress and spoke of it as a defensive measure to defend the Congress against an inevitable attack by the Provisional Government, that would not passively accept a vote by the Congress to take power. [18] In contrast, workers’resolutions in the Ivanovo-Kineshma region in the weeks preceding the October revolution rarely mentioned the Soviet Congress at all when they demanded soviet power ‘at once’. [19] The mood here was one of impatience, with workers accusing the Bolsheviks of indecision. [20] Shortly before October, the Bolshevik, I.V. Beliacv, reporting to the Kineshma Soviet on his recent trip to Petrograd, concluded : ‘History calls on us to take power... Are we ready ?’ ‘We have been ready for a long time now’, retorted someone from the hall, ‘but we don’t know why they are still asleep in the centre.’ [21]

The hesitation in October in Petrograd was deeply influenced by the experience of the July Days that had ended in bloodshed and the onset of political reaction. The Ivanovo-Kineshma region had had its July [161] Days too (during which the Ivanovo Soviet seized key institutions), but they had been entirely peaceful and left the local political situation unchanged. As in the capital, the local Bolsheviks were accused by non-soviet organisations (united in the Executive Committee of Public Organisations) of attempting to seize power. The executive of the Ivanovo Soviet, to clear its name, even agreed to cooperate in an inquiry into the events. But this was firmly vetoed by the general assembly of soviet delegates, who affirmed that they were responsible solely to the Central Executive Committee of Soviets in Petrograd and owed no one apologies. The assembly then proceeded to elect a new executive. [22] More important, perhaps, the workers here did not share their Petrograd comrades’ fear of political isolation from moderate socialists and democratic intelligentsia that would inevitably result from the soviet seizure of power. Workers in the Ivanovo-Kineshma region had no experience of cooperation with these elements and so could scarcely fear their alienation.

Frunze, chairman of the Shuia Soviet and municipal government, summed up the pre-October mood in the following manner :

The mood everywhere, especially among the workers and soldiers, was strongly revolutionary. The soviets felt their strength and acted in the consciousness of the absolute inevitability of the final transfer of power to the toilers in the whole republic. Everyone lived in the expectation of a signal from the centre. But as time passed and it did not come, the movement here and in the entire Vladimir province soon began to overflow its banks. [23]

Besides the threat of counter-revolution, the continuing war, and the threat to production posed by the deepening economic dislocation, it was especially the deterioration of the food situation in September and October that was driving the movement 'over its banks’. On 4 September, a meeting of the workers of the F. Garelin Mill in Ivanovo demanded that the government send grain at once, ‘since we workers are on the eve of a hungry death and no longer have the strength to work for lack of food’. [24] The local paper reported cases of workers falling on the road from exhaustion. [25] On 8 September, the Ivanovo- Voznesensk food authority informed the government that the city’s population was starving and the mills would soon have to stop, unless fifty wagons of grain arrived in the next few days. [26]

On 20 and 21 September, the Ivanovo Soviet heard reports from the mills. The delegates described the workers’distress, their discontent with the soviet and the food authority, and warned that the workers’ desperation was pushing them into the streets. [27] In an effort to channel [162] this discontent, the soviet decided to call a demonstration for 23 September under the slogans ‘All power to the Soviets’ and ‘Peace, Bread and Jobs’. In its resolution, the soviet took note of the spontaneous movement that was being provoked by hunger, low wages and the general economic disorganisation that was leading to the closure of the mills. It accused the owners of not taking measures to maintain productivity and of refusing to deal with the workers’ organisations, and concluded with the observation that the solution to all these local problems was linked to the general situation in the country, and that could not be improved until the soviet replaced the present form of government. [28]

Demonstrations took place in all the industrial centres of the region. At meetings, the workers were told that the economic crisis could not be seriously tackled until the war ended and the bourgeoisie was removed from power. In Ivanovo, after the meetings, the workers gathered before the duma, where they greeted the new Bolshevik mayor and executive. But the food situation did not improve, and still nothing happened in Petrograd. On 2 October, several women workers of the N. Garelina Mill went to the mill committee to demand bread. Soon the whole mill was gathered in the yard. Some speakers criticised the Food Authority, mill committee and other public organisations, calling for ‘active operations’ against the authority. In the meantime, other workers had summoned representatives of the soviet executive and the Food Authority, who with great difficulty persuaded the workers to go back to work. [29] Such incidents were frequent. On 3 October, the executive of the Ivanovo Soviet noted that ‘the situation has become so tense that it is impossible to guarantee order’. As an emergency measure, it decided to authorise searches where there was some evidence of hoarding. Again it telegraphed Petrograd for food, but also began its own negociations with the railway for help in shipping cloth, to be traded with other regions for food. [30]

The next day, delegates from the Ivanovo mills met to discuss the food crisis. The town’s two big grain merchants, Latyshev and Kurazhev, had also been invited. The workers expressed their frustration bv letting Latyshev chair the meeting. When the soviet representative told them that there was no hope of obtaining flour in the next few days, the meeting exploded with anger directed at the soviet and mill committees. Seeing an opening, the merchants offered to organise food distribution, if they were freed from the tutelage of the various committees. But other speakers took the floor and eventually turned [163] the mood around, explaining, once again, that the root cause of the crisis was the war and the policies of the Provisional Government. The meeting then elected a new praesidium and voted a series of concrete measures, including the organisation of a special collective, consisting of two delegates from each mill, within the Food Authority, whose task it would be to keep the workers informed and to send people to the points of collection to see the difficulties themselves. The meeting concluded with the vow ‘to struggle against ignorance and to defend with might and main our workers’ organisations’. [31]

This sort of incident was to become common over the next three years of chronic food crisis. The Bolsheviks’ ability to retain worker support, shaky though it often became, was remarkable. Yet the workers had not come originally in 1917 to support soviet power and the Bolsheviks because of hunger, and hunger in itself was not, apparently, a sufficient cause for the workers to abandon them. Reports at a Bolshevik conference in the Kineshma district in late September all confirmed the strength of Bolshevik influence, while noting that party ‘work had been more intense before the food crisis - the food crisis distracts the masses’. [32] The delegate from Teikovo to the conference of soviets of the Shuia district, reported that ‘the soviet has always been equal to the situation, and the workers believe in its strength. But the food crisis complicates the soviet’s work.’ From Kokhma : ‘The soviet’s situation is stable, but its work comes up against the same wall : the food and economic crisis.’ And Zimenki : ‘The soviet is the leader and sole authority in the area. But the food question is acute.’ [33]

It was in these circumstances that the Ivanovo-Kineshma Regional Union of Textile Workers prepared to present its demands to the mill owners. This was the culmination of a process initiated in April that, it was hoped, would lead to a region-wide collective agreement based upon the principle of a minimum living wage tied to the cost of living, a principle that reflected the interests of this basically unskilled, homogeneous work force.

The region had witnessed a massive economic strike movement on the eve of the February revolution. But it yielded little for the workers, and immediately after returning to their mills following the revolutionary days, they presented their wage demands to the management. The owners, having been suddenly deprived of the support of the Tsarist state, were generally in a conciliatory mood. But the concessions were unequal across the region, and a regional conference of soviets was called on 4-6 April to decide on a common set of demands. These [164] included the eight-hour day, a wage rise and a single payment equal to 20 per cent of the total wage paid between Easter 1916 and Easter 1917. A meeting between the workers’ and owners’ delegates in Moscow on 10--12 May ended in a deadlock over die modalities of introducing the eight-hour day and over the size of the wage package - the owners’ offer was 35-40 per cent below the workers’ demand When the owners declared that they would implement their offer unilaterally, the workers’ side walked out. At a meeting afterwards, they decided to allow the owners to go ahead (thus doubling the basic wage), but not to yield on the workers’ demands. But since the workers were not yet organised and economic dislocation threatened the very existence of the mills, they would first set up a regional union and ensure that the mills were adequately supplied before joining battle. The workers at the mills, when presented with this plan, endorsed it fully. [34]

The regional union was officially founded at a delegates' conference on 10-12 June. By that time, about a third of the work-force had been organised. The conference decided to continue the organisational campaign and to collect data from the mills on the movement of prices and wages since the start of the war, as well as on the workers’ budgets. These data were to be the basis for calculating the minimum living wage. [35] The survey, concluded in August, found that wages had risen 300-600 per cent since the start of the war, while prices had shot up boo to 1,200 per cent. The minimum subsistence wage for both men and women (something that broke with the owners’ traditional practice) was calculated at 7.53 roubles a day. This was based upon a budget that allocated 52 per cent for food, 27 per cent for clothing and footwear, and 21 per cent for hygiene, culture, tobacco and other extras.

The delegates’ conference on 12-15 August discussed these demands and noted that the atmosphere was heavy with the threat of a mass strike, and that the workers were eager for it. All agreed, however, that the struggle would be much harder than in the spring, since the owners had recovered from their initial shock. They were better organised than the workers and felt confident, hurling challenges at the workers : refusing now to pay for idle time due to stoppages and ignoring the factory committees. The conference gave the executive a strike mandate, after which the demands were taken back to the mills for approval or amendment. The rank and file strongly supported the union’s position and, with a few exceptions, heeded its calls to refrain from isolated strikes. [36] On 11-12 October, a joint conference of union delegates and representatives of the soviets and [165] councils of factory committees decided to present the demands on 13 October, giving the owners until the 18th to respond. In the eventuality of a negative reply, an (all-male) strike committee was elected. [37]

16. Love at Close Quarters. The worker says to the bourgeois intellectual : ‘See how tenderly I love you ! There’s no need for any words.’

Besides wages, the other main demands were an eight-hour day (six hours on the eve of holidays) ; four weeks’ pregnancy leave and six weeks’ maternity leave ; two weeks’ annual paid vacation ; owner- financed and worker-managed medical care ; cultural facilities, creches, kindergartens and playgrounds ; an end to fines and searches ; payment for idle time ; hiring and firing only with union agreement ; [166] and access to information on fuel and raw-material supplies. There was also a long list of demands concerning health and safety conditions, housing, washing facilities and limits to the number of machines tended by various types of worker. [38]

No reply came on 18 October and the union issued its Order no. 1 to begin the strike on the 21st. The mood in the mills was militant and eager. [39] A similar textile strike in Moscow was called off in view of the impending transfer of power, and in Petrograd strikes in general had been rare since the late summer for the same reason. [40] But the question of power presented itself differently here : in practice, it had already been settled. It was characteristic that Order no. 1 did not even make a passing reference to the issue of power. Rather, it gave a history of the economic conflict leading to the strike and set out the goals. All of these, too, were economic. But the local workers did not accept the liberal distinction between the economic and political when it came to their basic rights. And a listing wage was regarded as fundamental. [41]

The owners had apparently sent a reply by post on 16 October, but for reasons that are unclear, it only arrived on 25 October. However, on the 19th, the union did receive a telegram from the owners asking for a reply to their letter. Since this had not been received, the union decided to proceed with the strike. When, on the 21st, a second copy of the owners’ letter finally arrived, proposing to meet in Moscow in an arbitration committee with equal representation from both sides, the union executive replied by telegram : ‘We can start talks in Ivanovo, if you accept our subsistence minimum of seven and a half roubles.’ [42] The union issued the following declaration to the citizens of the region :

The victims of need are taking action to improve their lot : better wages, living, sanitary and technical conditions of work... In some mills the workers’ wages are at the starvation level... It is not surprising then that the workers, prodded by the bony hand of hunger, went to the capitalists for a raise. But this remained a voice calling in the wilderness. 'The workers have gone too far. They are ruining industry.’ This was heard from all sides. The petty-bourgeois philistine also opposed the workers. He thought they were seeking paradise on earth... We want to live like people. We can no longer live never eating and drinking our fill, dressing in rags, without boots, so that the capitalists can dress in silk and velvet, wear gold, eat sweetly, sleep a lot and make merry. We are asking for what we need, without which a person does not live but beats like a fish on the ice ... From this table [a worker’s budget], you can see clearly how modest our demands are ... We [167] are staking our existence and we will fight our merciless opponent with all the means the organised workers have at their disposal. We believe firmly that any reasonable person will understand that we have no other way out, that we have a right to take this action. [43]

As expected, the workers, even in the farthest backwaters of the region, responded enthusiastically. Their reaction also showed clearly the political underpinning of this economic strike. In this connection, it is worth noting that, on the eve of the strike, the Ivanovo Soviet established a Red Guard command, consisting of a member of its executive, the commander of the Red Guard, and one representative of each of the socialist parties. It declared that henceforth all soviets in the province of Vladimir were ‘in a state of open warfare with the Provisional Government’. They were to regulate the life of their localities on their own authority, ‘adhering strictly to the interests of the toiling masses’. [44] In fact, this declaration merely formalised the existing state of affairs in the industrial centres and it therefore had no noticeable effect.

In Ivanovo, the mills came to a stop at 10 a.m. on 23 October. The workers formed into columns behind red banners and, singing revolutionary songs, marched to the central square. The banners bore mostly economic demands, but some demanded ‘All Power to the Soviets’ and ‘Down with the Provisional Government’. In the town of Shuia with its large garrison, soldiers, in full battledress, also took part in the demonstration. Addressing the crowd, Frunze told it that the Provisional Government was incapable of dealing with the fast approaching economic calamity. Nor was it capable of adopting decisive policies in the interests of the popular classes. The only hope in the coming crisis was to transfer power to the soviets in the centre and in the localities. [45]

At once, the strike committees took control of the mills, setting up armed pickets at the gates. No one and nothing could enter or leave without written authorisation of the factory committee. [46] As was their custom in times of serious unrest, most owners had already retreated to Moscow. But those who remained found themselves subject to a ‘state of siege’, their homes guarded by armed workers, who demanded passes from the owners and their family members when they wanted to leave the area. In the village of Vakhromeevo, about seventeen kilometres from Ivanovo, the workers carried matters rather far. The owner ran out of food and wanted to slaughter a cow, but the factory committee refused permission, seeing that the cow was part of the mill’s inventory and was therefore the property of the entire working [168] class. Matters were soon set straight by a member of the union executive, who was passing through. But at the Garelin Mill, the owner’s wife became hysterical, when the mill committee refused to give her access to the factory cash box. [47]

On 23 October, the Society of Mill Owners of the Shuia region decided to post announcements informing the workers of their readiness to raise wages and negotiate, hoping to undermine support for the union. But it wisely decided not to post the declaration of the Moscow- centred Union of United Industry, which threatened to fire all workers not reporting for work within three days. It was felt that this might ‘irritate the masses’. [48] The non-socialist press, giving full vent to its imagination, reported on the anarchy in the mills and claimed that the strike had taken the workers by surprise. They accused the union of needlessly disrupting production and causing the ruin of the industry. The union replied with a call ‘to boycott the bourgeois press’. All this had little effect on the workers’ resolve. [49]

On 24 October, the Minister of Labour invited the union to come to Pecrograd to discuss ways of resolving the conflict. The union replied that since the strike was in the Ivanovo-Kineshma region, it would make more sense for the minister to come there. [50] In any case, the Provisional Government was overthrown the next day. According to Frunze, the transfer of power in the capital went almost unnoticed here. ‘It was accepted as something completely self-evident and inevitable.’ [51] ‘In a city such as Ivanovo-Voznesensk’, recalled V. Kuznetsov, the Ivanovo Soviet’s first chairman, ‘we had nothing to overthrow... We contacted Shuia, Kineshma, Teikovo and other worker settlements. Everywhere - quiet, calm, restraint. February and October were two such quiet months — it was surprising.’ ^[52] The only active resistance in the industrial centres came from the state employees, and this was a minor affair.

The Ivanovo Soviet was in session on 25 October, when D. Furmanov (then an SR Maximalist) reported the news, received by telephone, that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. According to the protocols, ‘this news provoked a storm of applause and shouts of joy’. In view of the excitement, a recess was proposed, during which the party factions could discuss their positions. Upon reconvening, a joint proposal of the executive and the majority Bolshevik fraction called for the formation of a Provisional Revolutionary Command, consisting of five people with full powers to maintain order. The five were elected unanimously. The soviet empowered the command to monitor all conversations and telegrams at the telephone [169] exchange and telegraph. The post and telegraph employees responded with a strike.' [53]

On the evening of 27 October, the soviet called a meeting of public organisations to decide on a more permanent body to replace the Revolutionary Command. Present were the executive of the soviet, the duma executive, and the praesidia of the four socialist parties as well as of the railway and regimental committees. The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks each proposed resolutions. The Mensheviks condemned the defunct Provisional Government, a coalition of moderate socialists and liberals, but called for the formation of a new government on the basis of ‘broad revolutionary strata of the people’. They specifically ruled out a government responsible solely to the soviets, which represented only the workers and soldiers (the soldiers being overwhelmingly peasants), as ruinous, given the country’s political and economic backwardness. Such a government would lead to the political isolation of the working class and the ruin of the revolution. As for the local government, the initiative in organising it should fall to the city duma (elected by all classes of the population) and to the regimental committee.

The Bolshevik resolution was short : support the struggle of the Petrograd workers and soldiers for a ‘homogeneous government of socialist democracy’ (i.e. without liberals or other representatives of the propertied classes) in the form of the soviets of workers’, soldiers’ and peasant deputies. This resolution won by twenty votes against five with three abstentions. The Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) did not participate in the vote, and the Mensheviks walked out immediately afterwards. Neither party sent representatives to the new General Command of Revolutionary Organisations which replaced the Provisional Revolutionary General Command. This new body was to consist of two delegates from the soviet executive and one from the SRs, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Maximalists, duma executive, railway committee and regimental committee. [54] As in Petrograd, the rejection by the moderate socialists of the coalition proposal was based upon their outnght rejection of any government responsible solely or mainly to the soviets.

This stand sealed their fate with the workers in October, who, for their part, were not prepared to yield on the issue of soviet power. The workers of the Ivanovo-Kineshma region greeted with enthusiasm the news of the formation of a soviet government in Petrograd. [55] The delegate from Ivanovo to the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee reported at the time that ‘the mood of the [170] workers and soldiers is excellent. During the insurrection in Moscow, they pleaded to be sent to aid the [Moscow] Military-Revolutionary Committee.’ [56]

G. Korolev, a leader of the textile union, recalled that when the news of fighting in Moscow reached Ivanovo, the union was ‘literally besieged with requests and demands to be sent to Moscow to aid the workers there’. [57] The Moscow Soviet suggested that Ivanovo wait. But in Shuia, with the region’s largest garrison, the soviet, with Ivanovo’s agreement, sent an armed force of 900 workers and soldiers, which was seen olT at the railway station by a huge crowd. By the time the force reached Moscow, it had gathered some 1,100 additional men. Arriving on the outskirts of the city in full battledress, they were at first taken for troops sent by Kerensky from the front against the soviet. All the more demoralising was the effect when the anti-soviet forces realised that these were hostile men. [58]

This was only a part of the influx of revolutionary forces, especially workers, from the provincial industrial centres around Moscow. According to A. Pireiko, an instructor for the Moscow Province Soviet, ‘without the participation of the workers of the regional industrial centres, the victory on the barricades in Moscow would scarcely have been possible’. [59]

Support for the Soviet Government was strong not only in the mills, but among all strata of the working class. In Kineshma, an administrative centre, where the soviet, despite its Bolshevik majority, did not take power in October, the printers, generally a moderate clement, refused to type-set the paper of the Revolutionary Committee (a non-soviet organisation that continued to support the overthrown Provisional Government) without the soviet’s written approval. [60] The strike called by Vikzhel, the executive committee of the Railway Union, which was trying to force the socialist parties into a coalition government not responsible to the soviets, was roundly condemned by the railway workers in the town. Their delegates’ council on 1 November voted unanimously to support fully the Soviet Government. [61]

The issue of a coalition government with the moderate socialists that temporarily split the national Bolshevik leadership had litde impact here. The local workers, like those all over Russia, did want socialist unity in order to meet the dangers facing the revolution, but that unity had to be based upon the soviets, political bodies that represented only the popular classes. There could be no return, in whatever modified form, to a coalition with representatives of the propertied classes. After the moderate socialists refused the offer by [171] the Ivanovo Soviet to join the General Command of Revolutionary Organisations, the soviet, on 4 November, resolved that the ‘defenc- ists’ (the Right Mensheviks and SRs) could not be allowed in the General Command ‘because they did not adhere to the uprising of the workers and soldiers’. [62]

The soviet took the same position on the question of the national government. When it first discussed this on 1 November, the position of the moderate socialists against Soviet power was not yet clear. The soviet passed the following resolution :

Russia is now going through a period of acute class struggle, civil war. It was not the workers, nor the soldiers and peasants who began the bloodshed. The blood that is being shed in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow falls on the head of the overthrown Provisional Government and the parties and groups that support it.

At this moment, when a new Komilovshchina has arisen, all socialist parties must rally to form a united socialist front. Those parties that refuse this and seek coalitions with various committees of public salvation consisting of Kornilovite elements thereby cast themselves out from the ranks of revolutionary democracv and openly assume their place in the ranks of the counter-revolution.

The Ivanovo-Voznesensk Soviet promises full support by all available means to the new provisional government - the government of revolutionary soldiers, peasants and workers which has been created from the midst of the soviets and is responsible to them. [63]

A few days later, a delegate returned from Petrograd to report the Menshevik and SR condition for joining a coalition - that the government have a base broader than the soviets, including the dumas, elected by universal suffrage, and other organisations which included representatives of the propertied classes. This broader base would also ensure that the Bolsheviks, the majority at the Soviet Congress of 25 October, be a minority partner in the coalition government. The new resolution of the Ivanovo soviet stated :

Decisively rejecting these treacherous proposals [... the soviet] declares that power must remain in the hands of the soviet and must not be transferred to any... ‘popular soviet’, which the Mensheviks and SRs want to pack with supporters of Kerensky.

The Ivanovo-Voznesensk Soviet demands a complete end to negotiations on an agreement with the Mensheviks and Right SRs. At the same time, it proposes that the Left SRs [politically [172] close to the Bolsheviks] decisively adhere to the workers’ and peasants’ revolution and enter the Council of People’s Commissars... Rykov, Nogin and the other [members of the Soviet government who had resigned from the Bolshevik Central Committee over what they felt to be its intransigence] should not abandon their posts. [64]

In contrast to Petrograd, there is no evidence that the workers here were particularly agitated by the issue of a socialist coalition. They based their judgement on their own experience, and in urban centres of the region the moderate socialists did not have a politically significant base. What base they did have was, in any case, hostile to the workers. In the countryside, the SRs did have support among the peasants (though it became weaker the closer one came to industrial centres). But the issue of a socialist coalition really involved the Leftleaning elements in the educated stratum of Russian society, the socialist intelligentsia, which almost unanimously supported the moderate socialist parties. There was a real dearth of educated people among the supporters of soviet power, and this posed real problems for the revolutionary regime. [65] But the peasants were not a matter of immediate concern to the workers. They might continue to vote for the SRs because of their historic identification with the populists, but their interests lay with the soviets which alone sanctioned their seizure of the land and would defend it against the counter-revolution.

The only ones who really seemed to waver over this question were the Bolsheviks in Ivanovo’s duma. As they were involved in the day- to-day city administration, they were more sensitive than most to the shortage of cultural forces among the partisans of soviet power and to the importance of securing the cooperation of the educated elements of society. Their work put them in daily contact with these ‘intermediate strata’, and they could not help but be influenced to some degree by their outlook. On the same day as the Ivanovo Soviet called for an end to negotiations with the moderate socialists, an editorial in the duma’s paper took the side of the Bolshevik leaders who had resigned from the Central Committee, accusing it of intransigence in the question of a socialist coalition. [66] On 2 November, a resolution sponsored jointly-by the Bolshevik, Menshevik and SR fractions of the duma called for a socialist coalition ‘resting upon the soviet of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ deputies of the second convocation, supplemented with representatives of the socialist parties and public organisations, and based upon an agreement among the socialist parties’. [67] This was a significantly more conciliatory position than that of the Ivanovo [173] Soviet. Yet, it too was doomed once it became clear that the intention of the moderate socialists was a Bolshevik minority in the coalition. This was unacceptable even to the more cautious Bolsheviks of the duma.

Another difference arose between the Bolsheviks in the soviet and those in the duma when the soviet executive decided on 12 November to stop the sale of the ‘bourgeois [i.e. non-socialist] press' in the city, pending a new law on the press. Workers’ meetings had been passing resolutions since the Kornilov affair demanding the closure of the nonsocialist press. During the strike, the textile union had called for a boycott. After the October revolution, this press refused to recognise Soviet power and called, directly and indirectly, for its overthrow. On 15 November, the soviet approved its executive’s decision to allow the sale only of socialist papers and it called on the Moscow Soviet to shut down the others. But the next day, the Ivanovo branch of the All- Russian Teachers’ Union complained about this to the duma. After a discussion, the duma, which had a Bolshevik majority, called on the soviet to review its decision, as it seemed unjustified. The soviet agreed to re-open the question, but on 22 November it reaffirmed its original decision with only eight opposing votes. [68]

But protests continued, especially among the non-working-class population. On 23 November, a general assembly of white-collar factory employees condemned the soviet’s decision. The clerks of the local regiments did the same a few days later, noting that the papers were being sold all the same. On 26 November, a crowd gathered at the railway station to receive the Moscow papers and was dispersed by the Red Guards. The soviet took up the matter for a third time on 29 November. The Bolshevik leader, Samoilov, speaking on behalf of the executive, admitted that the measure was ineffective - the papers continued to be sold. He proposed to lift the ban. This resolution was carried by a vote of fifty-six to thirty-six, with six abstentions. The SR Maximalists, led by Furmanov, registered their opposition. [69]

But the debate did not end here. The city committee of the Bolshevik party decided on 1 December to propose that the central government close the non-socialist press. It also resolved to fight against its distribution locally. On 4 December, the general assembly of the Ivanovo garrison called for the closure of Russkii Manchester for its ‘slander of the soviets of workers and soldiers and its defence of Kaledin, Kornilov and Rodzianko’. [70] (These were two Tsarist generals and a right-wing industrialist-politician respectively. Russkii Manchester, which began publishing in Ivanovo on 5 November, set as its goal ‘to facilitate the implantation in our region of new English and [174] Western European ideas, customs and labour-capital relations’.) The same day, the city-wide Bolshevik party conference voted by nineteen to eleven, with seven abstentions, to demand the closure of the bourgeois papers in the centre and the adoption of energetic measures in Ivanovo to prevent their distribution. It was claimed that the papers used slander as a weapon to ‘obscure the consciousness of the popular masses’. On 22 December, the soviet closed Russkii Manchester, citing the regiment’s decision and the paper’s refusal to recognise the Soviet government. [71] Before long, with the first battles of the Civil War in the south, the last of the non-socialist press was closed in the centre, thus finally putting the issue to rest in the Ivanovo-Kineshma region.

The Ivanovo post and telegraph employees, who had struck when the soviet had placed them under surveillance, rejected the duma’s proposal of conciliation. Citing the instructions of the Central Committee of Post-Telegraph Employees, they threatened to sabotage the machinery. On 26 October, the General Command of Revolutionary Organisations ordered them to return to work and to repair their machines, threatening 'revolutionary methods’. When this failed, 200 employees were arrested. Shortly afterwards, they agreed to end their strike. [72] But they continued to annoy the soviet. On 4 November, they posted and distributed a false telegram that had been received, announcing a revolt of officers in Ivanovo and calling for the arrest of the Bolsheviks. [73]

This was the limit of resistance to the October revolution in Ivanovo. The situation was similar in the region’s other industrial centres. In Shuia, a joint meeting of the soviet, the duma and the zemstvo, together with the factory and soldiers’ committees, was convened on 26 October in the hall of the People’s House. A huge crowd of workers and soldiers filled the building to overflowing. The news of the insurrection in Petrograd was received with jubilation, and the meeting voted unanimously to give all possible support to the Soviet government, as the only way out of the existing situation. It temporarily gave full power in the town to a revolutionary committee, consisting of one delegate each from the duma, the zemstvo, and the workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ sections of the soviet. [74]

Frunze, who chaired both the Shuia Soviet and duma, wrote that he

could not recall a single manifestation of protest or dissatisfaction on the part of any group. All opponents of the insurrection in Shuia among the intelligentsia and petty bourgeoisie dared not utter a word in the atmosphere reigning among the people. Of course, the insurrection in Shuia took place without any bloodshed [175] or gunfire ... We saw scarcely any of the sabotage on the part of the bureaucrats that was so widespread in Petrograd and Moscow. True, there were some hints of it from the post and telegraph employees, but this was cut short, and, in general, the entire local government apparatus continued to function without interruption. We had actually had our October earlier. [75]

The Shuia garrison proceeded to elect a new command. At a meeting of over 300 officers, the latter were offered the option of pledging loyalty to the soviet or of resigning with a guarantee of safe passage. Only a few resigned. At the end of October, a special peasant congress also voted to support the Soviet government. [76]

In the mill village of Vichuga, a Revolutionary Command was created even before the insurrection in Petrograd. Upon receiving a telegram telling of the insurrection, the soviet met with representatives of the textile union, the mill and strike committees and also the local zemstvo. Again the news was received enthusiastically and there was no noticeable opposition. [77]

The crucial factor in this smooth transition was that the Bolsheviks already held majorities in the local governments, elected by universal suffrage, in the industrial centres. The only people who experienced any immediate change in their situation were the employees of the central state in the post and telegraph offices. It was not until many weeks later that the day-to-day local administration was fully transferred to the soviets.

But matters were different in the district capitals of Kineshma and lurevets, where the local government was not in Bolshevik hands and mill workers formed a relatively small minority of the population. Kineshma was one of the few places in the region with a significant Menshevik organisation, many of whom worked in the cooperative movement that was centred here. The Bolsheviks won a majority in the Kineshma Soviet only in early September, following the abortive Kornilov rising. In the duma, the Bolsheviks held only a minority, though they were stronger in the Kineshma district zemstvo, thanks to the mill villages that surrounded the town. [78] The Bolsheviks in Kineshma were slow to respond to the news of the Petrograd insurrection. The local garrison demonstrated on 27 October under the slogan ‘All Power to the Soviets’, but the soviet was not convened until the 28th. It voted by forty-nine to nine, with four abstentions, to take power. But an attempt to establish surveillance over the post and telegraph found the building empty. The city administration also went on strike. [79]

[176]

On 30 October the new district zemstvo met. (Elections had been held a few weeks before.) It took five days of fractional fighting to reach an agreement on the composition of the executive : three Bolsheviks and three SRs. Then the Mensheviks proposed a resolution condemning ‘the attempt by the Bolsheviks, having split olT from united revolutionary democracy, to seize supreme power, to the obvious detriment of the revolution’. It proposed the formation of a ‘district committee of salvation’, consisting of the executive of the zemstvo, representatives of the duma, soviet, socialist parties, garrison, officers, the Post-and-Telegraph union, the white-collar railway employees, and, finally, the district commissar (the local representative of the defunct Provisional Government). The resolution also condemned the Kineshma Soviet for seizing power illegally and against the will of the ‘other organs of revolutionary democracy’. The SRs adhered to this resolution, which was passed by a vote of twenty-nine to seventeen. Following the vote, most of the Bolsheviks walked out, declaring that they would not participate in the zemstvo executive. Left without a quorum, the meeting was unable to form a new executive.

On 2 November, a meeting of representatives of neighbourhood street committees also condemned the soviet. They recognised only the Committee of Salvation that had been formed. The Kineshma duma followed suit the next day, voting unanimously in the absence of the Bolshevik deputies for a Menshevik resolution to condemn the Petrograd insurrection and calling on the ‘revolutionary democracy’ to rally round the dumas and zemstvos. This stand was endorsed the next day by the government employees, who promised to strike if the soviet sought to establish control over their activity. The executive of the peasant soviet also condemned the Petrograd insurrection. [80]

The Bolshevik leaders of the Kineshma Soviet decided to retreat in the face of such resistance. They negotiated an agreement with the other socialist parties to form a ‘popular soviet’, consisting of two representatives each from workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ soviets, and the zemstvo, and one each from the duma, All-Union Railway Union (white collar), Post and Telegraph Union, and the Textile Workers’ Union. This body was to wield full power, working in close contact with the duma and soviet. On 5 November, this agreement was presented to the soviet in the form of a resolution that argued that full power should really be in the hands of the local self-governments elected by universal suffrage. ‘But recognising the great services rendered to the revolution by the soviets of workers’, soldiers’ and [177] peasants’ deputies, the Kineshma revolutionary democracy wishes to strengthen, by means of soviet authority, the position of the young organs of local self-government.’

Many of the soviet delegates disliked this compromise and had harsh words for the leadership. They felt that it was impermissible for the soviet to accept an accord with the Mensheviks, who only a few days earlier had led the zemstvo in condemning the soviet. A delegate from a large textile mill declared that ‘the workers will recognise no organs [of power] other than the soviets’. The accord was nevertheless ratified. [81] It did not, however, last very long. The Bolsheviks soon left the ‘popular soviet’, and a sort of dual power reigned in the city and district, the soviet not interfering with the day-to-day administration of the local government. [82] The main card of the moderate socialists was the support of the public employees. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks had the support of the workers and control of the garrison. In mid November, the vote to the Constituent Assembly produced by the civilian population of the town gave the Kadets 1,275 votes ; the Bolsheviks - 542 ; the Mensheviks - 477 ; SRs - 475 ; and the clergy 99. However, in the garrison, the Bolsheviks received 1,231 votes out of 1,699 ; in the suburb of Popovka - 418 out of 849 ; and at the nearby Konovalov Mill - 1,376 out of 1,589. In all, the Bolsheviks received 61 per cent of the vote in the town and its environs. [83] By now the peasant soviet had also swung to Soviet Power. [84]

Pull Soviet Power was just a question of time ; the soviet was waiting until it had enough experienced people to face the threat posed by opposition from the government employees. Already on 26 November, over the protest of the zemstvo, the soviet appointed its own delegate to head the zemstvo commissariat, a body that coordinated the activity of the zemstvo and duma. On 10 December, the Bolsheviks left the zemstvo, claiming that it was not representative of the population and calling for new elections. A series of meetings in the smaller rural districts supported the Bolshevik call. But it was only in February 1918 that the Kineshma Soviet fully assumed the functions of the zemstvo. [85]

The working-class element in Iurevets was even weaker than in Kineshma. In the brief reaction following the July Days here, the moderate socialists had managed to obtain representation in the soviet for various white-collar and intelligentsia organisations. As a result, on 28 October, the Iurevets Soviet, which had earlier refused even to send a delegate to the Soviet Congress in Petrograd, condemned the ‘criminal attempt by the Bolsheviks to seize power’. The Iurevets Duma did [178] likewise and set to organising a ‘Committee of Struggle against Anarchy’. The district zemstvo, thanks to the large mill village of Rodniki, had a Bolshevik majority. [86]

Meanwhile, the workers picketing the Mindavskii Linen Mill, the only large factory in Iurevets, began to seek arms. The soviet responded by attempting to organise a ‘popular militia’ to defend itself against the workers. The Bolsheviks began laying plans for an insurrection : the Mindavskii strike committee would serve as the centre and the factory committees would force the soviet to call new elections. Workers went out to their native villages to explain the government’s Decrees on Land and Peace and to win the peasants over to Soviet Power. The Constituent Assembly elections in November in the Iurevets district gave the Bolsheviks 55 per cent of the vote. On 10 December, a conference of factory committees in the town demanded soviet elections on the basis of new, genuinely representative norms. If the soviet refused, the factory committees would proceed on their own. The soviet had little choice. Following the elections, on 22 December, the new soviet voted unanimously to assume power in Iurevets. By that time, the situation in the town had seriously deteriorated, and the soviet had to turn to Ivanovo and Kostroma for help in controlling criminal elements. [87]

This was the extent of active opposition to the October revolution in the region. The actual transfer of administrative functions from the dumas and zemstvos to the soviets was not completed, however, until early 1918. Osinkin, a Bolshevik deputy to the Ivanovo Soviet, recalled that the question became an object of heated debate among the Bolsheviks after October, even though they controlled the duma. Those who argued on pragmatic grounds to leave the administration temporarily with the old organs of self-government won out. By the time the soviets finally dispersed the dumas and zemstvos, the oppositional zeal of the employees had considerably waned, and in the meantime, the workers had had time to gain some administrative experience of their own. [88]

The October revolution did not affect the workers’ resolve to see their strike through to victory. To them the revolution meant above all the opportunity at last to live as human beings, and for this they needed a minimum wage tied to the cost of living. Their leaders understood this, even though they themselves felt that consolidation of the new regime called for a resumption of production. Accordingly, once the fighting was over in Moscow, the union sent two delegates to the owners to propose an end to the strike, and negotiations on the [179] basis of a 6-rouble minimum. This was a concession from the original demand of 7.50. But the owners would accept no preliminary conditions for negotiations. Moreover, they claimed that the strike had broken the workers’ individual contracts ; and so they had full freedom in the new hiring that would begin on 10 November. Having been rebuffed, the union delegates went on to Petrograd to obtain government help. [89]

In the meantime, the union executive and central strike committee met with representatives of the regional soviets. Their discussion made it clear that a majority felt it inexpedient to continue a strike that played into the hand of the owners, who now wanted to keep the mills shut as long as possible. On the other hand, they knew that they could not call the strike off without giving the workers any concrete results. The meeting decided to make a new offer to the owners as a basis for ending the strike and opening negotiations : recognition of the principle of a minimum wage based upon a minimum living budget, its size open to negotiation ; recognition of the individual contracts as still intact ; pay for days lost in the strike ; a region-wide collective agreement retroactive to 1 August. [90]

Before the offer was presented, the emissaries returned from Petrograd with a message from the Commissar of Labour asking for an end to the strike while he prepared legislation regulating labour- capital relations, including a minimum wage and limitations on profits. The strike benefited only the owners. He noted that the Moscow district union had called off its strike. The Ivanovo-Kineshma union, however, decided to maintain the strike while awaiting a response to its new offer. It repeated that ‘it is entirely impossible to call the workers back to work without giving them any results whatsoever from their strike’. The reports coming in from the mills indicated that the strikers remained very determined and in good spirits. [91]

On 11 November, the two sides met. The owners made a counterproposal : although the contracts were formally broken, all workers would be rehired ; issues relating to white-collar employees would not be discussed with the workers’ union (most white-collar employees belonged to a separate union) ; the agreement would be retroactive to October ; any minimum wage had to be tied to productivity norms. The union was prepared to yield only on the date from which the contract would begin. The talks thus broke off. But three days later, thanks to the intervention of the Economic Department of the Moscow Soviet, the talks were resumed and soon yielded a preliminary agreement that was to serve as a basis for further negotiations. The union [180] had accepted the majority of the owners’ counter-proposals : no pay for time lost ; the agreement retroactive to 15 September ; white-collar issues not to be discussed ; a minimum wage tied to productivity norms. Nevertheless, the union felt it had won the essential - a minimum wage tied to the cost of living and a region-wide collective agreement. [92]

The union instructed the strike committees that work would resume on 17 November. The mill committees were to verify all claims that technical conditions or lack of fuel did not permit a resumption of production. Such claims were widespread, but in most cases pressure from the mill committees was enough to force management to re-open. In some cases, the mill committees started up production in direct opposition to management. On 17 November, the executive of the Ivanovo Soviet ordered the committees to maintain surveillance of production and the movement of goods, intervening where justified. [93]

Among the workers, the feeling was that they had won a major victory. Support for the Bolsheviks remained very strong. [94] In the Constituent Assembly elections in Ivanovo, the Bolsheviks received 64.3 per cent of the vote, as compared to 54.6 per cent in the duma elections at the end of August. The Bolshevik gains, as well as those of the non-socialist parties, were made at the expense of the SRs, who dropped from 23.4 per cent to 12.7 per cent. 1'he Mensheviks fell from 3.8 per cent to 2.5 per cent. [95] In Vladimir province as a whole, the Bolsheviks’ list won 56.5 per cent of the vote ; in Kostroma province, which was more rural, 40.0 per cent. Where data are available for the industrial centres, they show that Bolshevik popularity was very high. In Ivanovo itself, the well-to-do central city district gave the Bolsheviks only 35.1 per cent, but the working-class district of Grafskaia Zcmlia 95.2 per cent. The workers and employees of the Konovalov Factory, outside Kineshma, voted 86.6 per cent Bolshevik ; 9.65 per cent Menshevik ; and 5.0 per cent SR. [96]

But the conflict was far from over. In the negotiations, the owners offered 5.25 roubles as the minimum wage for men and 4.50 for women. The union rejected this as too low and discriminatory against women, the majority of the work force. Talks broke ofT on 29 November. The owners decided to go ahead unilaterally and implement their wage offer. The union responded by directing the mill committees to introduce on their own a 6-rouble minimum for both men and women. The introduction of new wage scales, as well as hiring, dismissals and transfers, were to be overseen by committees consisting of two-thirds of workers and one-third of management. In the case of stoppage [181] related to the owners’ opposition to the wage increase, the mill committees were to continue production on their own, informing the soviet of this and using the Red Guards when necessary. [97]

it had become clear that the owners did not fear a strike in the existing political conjuncture. Different measures were needed. On 30 November, the union executive met with representatives oi the Ivanovo Soviet, and it was decided to arrest the most prominent of the owners. On 3 December, a detachment of Red Guards from the mill village of Teikovo arrested four owners in Moscow and delivered them to the Ivanovo jail. The union told the owners to address their protests to the government institutions that had issued the arrest orders. Shortly after the arrest, one of the owners accepted the 6-roublc minimum and was released. In the mills, the committees proceeded on their own to introduce the minimum. Citing the likelihood of sabotage, the regional soviet forbade shipment of goods without the authorisation of the local soviets. Henceforth, absences on the part of the owners and managerial personnel also required the authorisation of the mill committee. If they refused to carry out their normal duties, they were to be arrested and dispatched to Ivanovo. [98]

In mid December, the union proposed to re-open negotiations on the basis of the 6-rouble minimum for men and women. There was no reply. About one week later, yielding to the insistent urging of the Moscow Soviet and the Commissar of Labour, the Ivanovo Soviet released the other three owners. [99] The seizure of political power had not made much difference to this economic struggle. Four months later, the union was still negotiating the collective agreement with the owners. At the end of March 1918, the union delegates’ council recognised that their struggle had scarcely been facilitated by the acquisition of political power. It warned the central government against any further delay, demanding legislation establishing a minimum wage and obligatory collective agreements. [100]

But if the central government was slow in acting, this was mainly due to the same problem encountered by the regional soviet : political power had limited utility in forcing the hand of mill owners, when one wanted them to continue managing their mills even though they themselves were not at all keen to do so. Sooner or later, this struggle had to lead the workers to nationalisation. This policy had not been one of the original goals of their movement, despite a vague, though widespread, conviction that the mills were the legacy of the entire people. As early as 27 January 1918, the Shuia Soviet decided to ‘defend the principle of the nationalisation of the textile industry, as a measure which will [182] become inevitable in the general course of the development of our revolution’. [101] Although full nationalisadon in the region was in practice still a year away, the social content of the revolution, still vague in October, had by then been decided.

In the political sphere, there still remained the issue of the Constituent Assembly. In many of the workers’ resolutions, the Council of People's Commissars, elected by the Second Congress of Soviets in October, was originally referred to as the ‘Provisional Revolutionary' Government’. The final decision on the form of government was to be taken by the Constituent Assembly. This was an inherently contradictory position : the workers took power through the soviets in order to put an end to a coalition of the soviets with the propertied classes ; they wanted a soviet government : one responsible solely to the popular classes. But the Constituent Assembly was elected by universal suffrage, by all classes of society. In reality, the workers w'anted the Constituent Assembly to legitimise their class dictatorship. They did not foresee that the peasants, despite their hunger for land and peace, would still vote massively for the SRs. (An unknown, but large, proportion of these votes would have gone to the Left SRs, had they had time to form a separate list. But the split in the party came too late.) [102] In its editorial of 5 December, Rabochii gorod, the paper of the Ivanovo Soviet and the duma, raised the question of what would happen if the Constituent Assembly did not support soviet power. But this possibility was immediately ruled out.

The position of the workers was relatively clear-cut, if not totally coherent : the Constituent Assembly had a role to play only if it supported Soviet Power. What that role might be, except perhaps to give the soviets legitimacy in the eyes of wavering intermediate social elements, was not clarified. On 7 January 1918, the soviet of workers’ and peasants’ deputies of the mill village of Kokhma was the scene of a ‘lively debate’ over the Constituent Assembly. A series of speakers expressed the view that the slogan ‘All Power to the Constituent Assembly’, that had become the rallying cry of all parties opposed to Soviet power, was a slogan directed against the popular classes. The meeting passed unanimously the following resolution, that reflected the thinking of workers across the region :

The Constituent Assembly will be able to play a beneficial role in the development of the revolution only if it decisively takes the side of the toiling people against the landowners and bourgeoisie.

If it consolidates Soviet Power, confirms the decrees on land, peace, workers’ control of production, nationalisation of the [183] banks, etc., and recognises the right of all peoples to self- determination.

Only such a Constituent Assembly will be welcomed by us. Otherwise the Constituent Assembly will be subject to dispersal. [103]

Among the peasants, opinion was not so unanimous. Nevertheless, it had the support of the majority in the region. The second congress of soviets of peasant deputies of Kostroma Province that met from 16—20 December was the scene of a bitter debate over this issue. A majority voted for the following resolution :

Any attempt by the Constituent Assembly to fight the soviets of peasants’, workers’ and soldiers’ deputies, as organs of revolutionary power... will be seen as an attack against the gains of the revolution and will meet our most decisive counter-action. [104]

The next three years in the region were dominated by the economic crisis - chronic hunger and the collapse of industry - and by the Civil War and foreign intervention, which aggravated the crisis and prevented its resolution. At the same time, the Bolshevik organisation was swallowed up by the tasks of administration and by recurrent military mobilisations (workers from this region formed the backbone of the celebrated Chapaev Division) leaving few people behind in the mills to continue political work among the remaining rank-and-file workers. In these conditions, the region saw numerous protests against the Bolsheviks and the soviets. But despite the terrible suffering, the bond between the Bolsheviks and the workers of the region remained intact. The Ivanovo-Kineshma region continued to be one of the firmest bases of the revolutionary regime. [105]