Shooting on the Lena River - a "black" page in the history of pre-revolutionary Russia
Nadezhny mine. Morgue Lipaevsky hospital could not accommodate the corpses of the executed. 1912. Photo by V. P. Koreshkov. Collection of the author (from the collection of the State Historical Museum)
The situation in pre-revolutionary Russia in 1912, of course, was rather tense, Nicholas II and the current government already had poor control over the situation in the country. If in the capital the state apparatus could work smoothly and quickly, then on the outskirts the control system was decomposed. Bribery, red tape and lawlessness flourished in the state. The situation in Siberia and the Far East was especially difficult. The situation of workers, even with the existence of existing laws on working conditions, duties and restrictions of the employer, became terrible. In practice, the laws were simply not applied, and numerous complaints were either not accepted or not considered. In addition, the level of wages in the whole country was extremely low, and the peasants in areas deprived of fertile land, eked out a miserable existence. The class of workers was invariably replenished, since in some cases hiring was the only means of survival during the crisis period. Poverty and the degradation of local bureaucracy were fertile ground for the development of radical leftist views and propaganda.
Few people know that the real “gold rush” has begun in 1840 in Russia. The richest reserves of gold sand and native gold were discovered in the areas of the Lena River and its tributaries. The people that had flown to the mines were initially very well enriched; even simple workers were able to accumulate capital. According to the stories of the pioneers of the “Russian Klondike,” the atmosphere in this region was in many ways like the Wild West. There were bathing in expensive champagne and scandalous cabarets, and all the attributes of the first stages of the gold rush. Morals quickly fell, prostitution flourished, theft, fraud, there were other signs of social disintegration. However, the situation soon changed radically.
People flocked to Lena from all over the country. Climatic conditions affected the performance, and geological exploration was virtually absent. Soon, the gold on the surface dried up, in order to extract the necessary volume, it was necessary to work in the mines. Organize the process of gold mining could only businesses that naturally did not intend to share profits with the workers. Salaries have fallen sharply. The rock strata needed to be warmed up, and to pump out the melt water. People worked in the water, and then went to the village in the cold and penetrating wind. Against the background of rapid impoverishment in the workers' settlements, places of entertainment disappeared, and the wives of the workers openly engaged in prostitution. The administration often supported immoral behavior and took into account the presence of women while sharing single men. Executives systematically used the wives and daughters of their subordinates as concubines or free labor. In addition, gold miners consumed a large amount of alcohol, which was exchanged for gold. In a society at the mine developed alcoholism, and the alcohol business flourished. For deliveries to the villages of the deadly potion, underground groups were formed, which by the 1860 years showed open resistance to the guard units and even to the Cossacks.
Gold mining became increasingly unprofitable, small enterprises went bankrupt, they expressed a desire to acquire the Ginzburg. Partly shares of the largest gold mining company, formed as a result of the consistent buying and capture of small mines, owned by Russian businessmen, as well as the state. The State Bank credited the main company in the Lenzoloto mines.
After short negotiations and trades, a significant part of the gold mining enterprise “Lenzoloto” belonged to British businessmen, therefore the working conditions were dictated from Misty Albion. Of course, with the well-known property of the British to follow the prescriptions of law and custom, one should not argue, however, it seems that the quality is manifested only for business in the UK itself. In Russia, things were done differently. Very soon, the management of the partnership "Lenzoloto" found out that the wages established at first were very high for the Russian people. There was no shortage of people who wanted to be employed in the mines; besides, government agencies were also involved in recruiting staff. The Board has begun a systematic reduction in salary payments. Gradually, the partnership monopolized transport, and then began to pay part of the salary in coupons, which could only be sold in specialized stores. Products in local shops were poor quality and expensive. Sometimes workers received unfit products for their work.
Under the contract of employment, men were not allowed to bring their families to the mines, so the position of women and children depended entirely on the administration. Family members were involved in labor, but the payment was disproportionately lower than that of men. There are proven cases of total refusal to pay for work performed. The duration of the shift was considered equal to 11 hours, but could be reduced by the administration at discretion. The opinion of the workers was not taken into account, even when bringing them to work on holidays and weekends. Theoretically, people had one day off per week, but in practice they could have excluded him.
Funds for the arrangement of workers life were not allocated. The barracks soon became dilapidated and no longer met even the minimum requirements for residential premises, the medical staff was practically absent. Safety systems and industrial sanitation did not exist in the mines, according to statistical data 7 people from 10 were injured. The injured in the process of work and those who lost their ability to work were simply dismissed without any allowance. The laws of the empire in the sphere of labor were completely ignored, work in the mines more and more resembled slavery. However, all this seemed unimportant compared to the ability to make a huge fortune. The key condition of the contract of employment was additional work, the result of which was allowed to be sold in local shops for buying up nuggets and precious sand. Theoretically, a healthy man could earn about 1000 rubles for a year, so employees suffered all the inconvenience and lower wages.
It is wrong to say that the management intentionally worsened the living conditions of the workers, since labor productivity dropped significantly due to illness, alcoholism, injuries and other things. The transfer of mining from the surface to the mines, as well as the most difficult climatic conditions, made the extraction of gold unprofitable. The British tried in every way to reduce the cost of production. It should be noted that to a certain extent they succeeded. Thus, in the “English” period, the shares of Lenzoloto for the first time exceeded their nominal value at the exchange more than twice. However, the unstable position of the partnership provoked unpredictable fluctuations in the value of shares, which led to the ruin of many exchange participants.
Nonetheless, direct violations of the imperial laws regarding the workers were manifested in all aspects of the company's activities, they were also discovered by the state commission, which arrived at the scene shortly after the tragedy. The local authorities, including the governor, judges and other representatives of the state, who were called upon to protect the legitimate interests of the workers, did not react to the statements, as they were fully fed by the monopolist. Dissatisfaction, accumulated over the years, finally broke out in the largest strike. As a pretext today, three versions are considered related to the provision of workers with food. The most popular is the one that tells about giving out rotten meat to people.
Fresh graves in the cemetery where the victims of the Lena shooting are buried. 1912. Photo by V. P. Koreshkov. Collection of the author (from the collection of Yu. A. Andrulaytis)
February 29 strike was declared at the Andreevsky mine, and then seized all the other working groups engaged in gold mining. More than six thousand people demanded from the administration in their March 3 letter:
• refuse to pay wages in the form of commodity coupons;
• resettle single and family workers;
• Eliminate sexual harassment of women and the practice of sexual slavery;
• Introduce a rule to provide retired persons with a free ticket to Zhigalovo;
• organization of normal living conditions and food supply, as well as the establishment of an 8-hour working day and limitation of involvement in work on weekends and holidays.
The demands of the strikers were eighteen points, in addition, there were additional issues that needed to be resolved.
The strike led an already unprofitable company to multi-million dollar damage. The behavior of the workers provoked fury among the leadership, since the demands were literally imbued with a revolutionary spirit, which confirmed the conjecture about the vigorous activity among the gold miners of the left-wing radical parties. April 3 strike organizers were arrested.
However, among the strikers, there were still quite a few determined propagandists. As a result, on April 17 a large-scale march was launched in protest. The order for the shooting was given by the Tereschenkov gendarmerie captain, which came as a surprise to the demonstrators. The number of victims of the tragedy has not been precisely established; the following figures were indicated in the Zvezda newspaper: 196 demonstrators injured, 170 killed.
In the Duma, the news of the shooting of the peaceful demonstration was greeted in different ways, the right-wing deputies supported the actions of the local authorities, and the representatives of the left expressed indignation. A commission to investigate the incident was established. More precisely, they organized two commissions: a government headed by Manukhin and a public one headed by an unknown Kerensky. As a result of their work, flagrant violations and crimes were revealed by the Lenzoloto administration, as well as local authorities. Tereshchenkov was degraded, but none of the actual perpetrators of the tragedy were punished. The work of the company continued even in Soviet times.
In the kitten sits executioner Treschenkov, who carried out a bloody massacre of the Lena workers. 1912. Collection of the author (from the collection of Yu. A. Andrulayis)
Is it possible to lay the blame for the tragedy solely on tsarism? Any event in the socio-political life in Russia in the first quarter of the twentieth century was due to several conditions and many reasons. Lensky shooting is no exception. Excessive self-confidence of the leaders of the demonstration, the neglect of the basic needs of people by the Lenzoloto administration and the mindless pursuit of profit and the desire to avoid losses at all costs, as well as complete indifference, even criminal negligence of local officials - these are only a few reasons for what happened. The tragic confluence of a number of factors, rather than the mythical decision of an abstract subject, referred to in Soviet textbooks as "tsarism," led to such a bloody denouement.
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