Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Petersburg, 1890–1914 by Heather Hogan

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 701 struggle. The “backwardness” of the Choletais by the early 20th cen­ tury was therefore not determined by geography or other structural factors. It was instead primarily influenced by the actions of small producers who, in their efforts to preserve their importance within the local economy, also condemned themselves to a future of poverty, marginalization, and uncertainty. Small producers determined their own fate in the Choletais. But it is doubtful whether this fate was any better than if it had been imposed on them by entrepreneurs. Christopher E. Guthrie Dr. Guthrie is an associate professor of history at Tarleton State University. His current research centers on the reasons why socialism appealed to segments of the rural population in late-19th-century France. Forging Revolution: Metalworkers, Managers, and the State in St. Peters­ burg, 1890—1914. By Heather Hogan. Bloomington: Indiana Uni­ versity Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 319; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. At the turn of this century, Russian society underwent fundamental economic and political change that was triggered by rapid industrial­ ization, student and labor unrest, and the intransigence of the tsarist regime to meet the needs of political reform. Heather Hogan’s study of the Petersburg metalworking industry sheds new light on the rela­ tionship between the tsarist state, factory owners, managers, engi­ neers, and workers in a crucial sector of the Russian economy during this period. Based on extensive archival research and a thorough reading of all the major contemporary journals and newspapers, Forging Revolution extends our understanding of the impact of the forces of modernization, political revolution, and radicalization of the workforce on large metalworking factories. Hogan focuses on the period 1892—1912 and the Petersburg metal­ working factories that were the center of the empire’s production. The chapter organization is largely chronological, rather than the­ matic. In successive chapters, Hogan discusses the status of the metal­ working industry and the importance of the state in promoting growth of the sector through contract orders; the growth of the in­ dustry in the 1890s, and the nature of worker-manager and workerintelligentsia relations; the impact of a subsequent economic down­ turn; the revolution of 1905 that nearly toppled the tsarist regime and resulted in a limited constitutional monarchy; and the increasing militance but waning power of metalworkers’ unions over the next seven years. Just as in Western industry, the conflict between skilled laborers and managers intensified when efforts to control the labor process through various attempts to deskill the worker were intro­ duced. These included the introduction of automatic machine tools, scientific management, and new accounting and bookkeeping 702 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE schemes. Hogan also briefly examines the relationship between the rank-and-file workers and the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Hogan is interested in explaining the radicalization of the workers and the development of class consciousness because of the politics of the relationship between factory and manager on the shop floor (at the point of production). It would have been better to describe the production process more vividly, since Hogan says that the disempowering of labor was a product of the structural changes in the metalworking industry. Interestingly, the most radical workers were those who were the most highly skilled and literate and who had worked in the factories for years. Hogan explains that these workers’ consciousness was framed by the constant failures of their strikes. Indeed, more so than in other industries, metalworkers had relatively higher numbers of literate workers of higher income and skill. They also were tied more to the city than workers in other industries, more of whom maintained ties with their peasant families and villages. Hogan’s study could have been improved by a more detailed and analytical account of the role of the tsarist state in worker-manager relations. In addition, she does not fully follow through on her prom­ ise to discuss the reception of scientific management (for example, Taylorist thought) of Russian engineers and managers. She rightly points out that conditions were propitious for these individuals to embrace progressivist doctrines of rational management. Polytech­ nical education was on the upswing. Conflict between owners, manag­ ers, and workers had readied epidemic...