The politics of industrialization in tsarist Russia: the Association of Southern Coal and Steel Producers, 1874-1914

Abstract

Susan P. McCaffray. The Politics of Industrialization in Tsarist Russia: The Association of Southern Coal and Steel Producers, 1874-1914. De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996. xx, 299 pp. This compact history of tsarist Russia's most important industrial association fills a gap in the historiography of Russian industrialization, and does so with skill and grace. Professor McCaffray combines the rigorous analytic skills of the trained economist with a sharp understanding of politics and historical development. She has succeeded in producing a very readable, thought-provoking account of the rise of Russia's industrial class. In this she rounds out previously published accounts by Charters Wynn and this reviewer of Donbass workers, and of the society of this turbulent region. The volume should thus become mandatory reading for a broad range of scholars and students dealing with late Imperial Russia's development. Following a historical introduction that examines the earliest attempts of local entrepreneurs to mine coal in the Donets Basin, the volume presents chapters dealing with all the major problems of its rapid industrialization: the vagaries of the economic cycle of boom and bust; conflicts with the zemstvo and the landowning elite over taxes, and with the railroads over routes and freight tariffs; recruitment of a skilled and stable work force; workers' welfare and working conditions; and the political maneuverings that engaged much of the industrialists' attention during and following the 1905 revolution. All of these have been touched upon in other works, but here they receive a comprehensive discussion based on the outlook and considerations of the Association's members. The most detailed and penetrating discussions are those regarding the founding and of the coal and metal syndicates at the beginning of the 1900s, and McCaffray's account of the political tensions that wracked the Association during and following the 1905 revolution. Despite its conflict-riddled nature, the Association of Southern Coal and Steel Producers provides an instructive example of cultural development that could well be useful for contemporary Russia. Its history is that of common effort on the basis of common interest. The Association's annual congresses were a model of developing parliamentary culture based on negotiation and compromise that took into account minority needs along with the wishes of the dominant group. At the outset the author states unequivocally that It is clear that many (if not most) of the original mine chiefs were little inclined to invest in technically advanced equipment and held a rather short-term view of their operations (p. 15). These essentially had the outlook of the average Russian landholder of the time, interested in money to maintain his social position, but indifferent to economics and technology. …