New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918 by Michael s> Melancon Alice K. Pate (review)

Abstract

764 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 even though it has not been revised and possesses only a supplementary bibliography. There is still no study in English to replace Becker's work althoughwith the new availabilityof archivalmaterialit may be expected that such studies will eventually appear. Becker relied on published documents and secondary sources mainly in Russian but he made thorough use of them and his book has stood the test of time. Khiva and Bukharamay be regardedas the two CentralAsian stateswhich survivedas protectorates.Kokand, at one time the most favouredby Russia, might have formed a third but an uprising gave the excuse to annex the wealthy Farganavalley. The Turkmen statesperhaps lacked the resourcesto survive and the position of Kuldja was such that international relations ensured that Russian influence must be exercised indirectly.That Khiva and Bukhara survivedwas not the choice of the government of Tashkent which always looked to annexation and saw the protectorate status as only a temporaryand preferablya brief defermentof the eventual result.Nor was it the choice of the Ministryof Warwhich backedTashkent.It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, although unable to stop the advance of Russian generals in Central Asia, prevented them converting all their conquests into possessionsand thatforreasonsof internationaldiplomacyandparticularlyof maintainingreasonablyharmoniousrelationswith Britain. Becker describes various features of Russian relations with Khiva and Bukhara. He is concerned with these aspects rather than with the internal historyof the khanatesand it is, of course, on internaldevelopmentsthatmost recent scholarly work has concentrated. On the whole Russia interfered as little as possible with the khanates, perhaps in the hope that they would collapsewithout support.And the khanatesexperiencedless developmentand less change than the neighbouring Russian-ruled territories.It would have been instructive if Becker had drawn more explicit comparisons with the relations between the Indian states and British India the differencesare illuminating but he leaves this to other readers, content to provide the materialswhich might help readersto make theirown comparisons.Not only students of Russian and Central Asian history will be glad to have a new opportunityto put thisvaluableworkon theirshelves. London M. E. YAPP Melancon, Michael and Pate, Alice K. (eds).NewLabor Histo:y.Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, I840-I9I8. Slavica, Bloomington IN, 2002. v + 248 pp. Tables.Notes. Index. $25.95 (paperback). THIS collection of nine essays, with an introduction and afterword, by a selection of American and Russian scholars,'deliberatelyeschews the imposition upon workerexperience of ideology externalto workers'dailylives'(p. 2). In short, the aim of this book is to examine the practical needs, motives, aspirations and actions of Russian workers, rather than treat them as the proletariat of Marxist ideology, guided by a historic mission. In this the contributorsare successful.If Boris B. Gorshkovaddressesthe value of child labourto theRussianeconomy in thelate nineteenthcentury,andgovernment REVIEWS 765 attemptsto regulateit, ratherthan focusingon the experiencesof the children themselves, he certainly raises key issues on a little known theme of Russian labour history. Not the least of these is the compromises forced upon wellmeaning government officials,when facing the resistanceof factoryownersto restrictingtheexploitationofchildlabour.PaulHerrlingerandSergeiL.Firsov both examine aspects of the spiritualityof the Russian workers. While the decline in religiosityamong urbanworkersthat caused the Church considerable anguish was real enough, it was over-exaggerated. Lacking spare time, money and the supportof extended families,workersabbreviatedor adapted the sacramentsto suittheircircumstances,or turnedto civil rites,for example civil marriage, simply through lack of funds for Church services. But if their attitudetowardsthe Churchbecame more questioning,many stillneeded the solace of theirreligionin a harshand oftenbewilderingnew industrialworld. From Nikolai V. Mikhailov, Alice K. Pate and Mark D. Steinberg come interpretationsof workermentalities.Workerpoets showed an obsessionwith the loss of dignityof factorywork, and outrage at 'insultand humiliation, and pervasivedemands to be recognisedas "humanbeings", not slaves,machines or animals' (p. I 25). Remaining peasants at heart, workercollectives had an agenda independent frompoliticalleadership,and the recoveryof lost dignity remained central to that agenda. They certainly had little interest in the theoretical disputesbetween Mensheviksand Bolsheviks,and only tended to turn to the latter when they seemed to represent unity in the working-class politicalmovement. WilliamG. Rosenberg,MichaelMelancon andMichael C. Hickeyexamine aspects of the workers'movement during I9I7. In Petrograd,for example, factory committees seized control of state-owned munitions plants very quickly, while the committees in...