Urban Institutions and Factory Labor Before 1855
St. Petersburg Before the Reign of Alexander II
The Emergence of the Labor Question
The Government Commissions of 1857 - 1864
Labor Unrest and the Sunday School Movement
The Laboring Population in the 1860's
The Problem of Disease and Depravity
The Labor Question, 1867 - 1870
The Nevskii Strike of 1870

This is the first of two volumes dealing with the rise of industrial labor in Russia during the reign of Alexander II. The second volume, now in preparation, will cover the 1870’s. During the period treated in this study, St. Petersburg was the most advanced center of urban industry in Russia. Yet its working-class population, even after the 1861 emancipation, continued to consist primarily of peasant-work-ers whose roots remained in the countryside. Government officials and representatives of educated society who, after the Crimean debacle, recognized the importance of industrial progress, were faced with the conflict between industry’s growing need for a culturally advanced, self-reliant working class and the high value traditionally placed on Russia’s alleged immunity to the proletarian disease. This book is a history of the early stages of this conflict. In analyzing this problem, the author examines such topics as the debate on the "labor question" in educated society, the workers’ living conditions, police attitudes, labor unrest, the role of industrialists and technicians, and official and unofficial attempts to improve the workers’ lot. He concludes with a detailed account of St. Petersburg’s first major strike. An Epilogue looks ahead to the 1870’s and the growing influence of the radical intelligentsia. Reginald E. Zelnik is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley