The situation of the working class in Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. The situation of the working class in the 19th century

Extremely complex and multifaceted problems are united by the concept of the “labor question” in Russia. These include the formation of the working class, numbers and structure, composition, working conditions and standard of living of workers, legal and political situation, etc. Taking into account the research objectives of the monograph, the author of the essay has set a triune task: to explore the relationship between the government - entrepreneurs - workers, because politics , carried out by state authorities, was one of the significant levers regulating relations between entrepreneurs and workers (mainly through factory and labor legislation). Social policy implemented by enterprise owners was not only a regulator of their relationships with workers, but also an important area of entrepreneurial activity 1 .

Power, entrepreneurs and workers in the 1860-1870s.

The 60-70s of the 19th century were the beginning of great changes in the country. It was also a time of intense start in attempts to resolve the “work issue”. The fall of serfdom was one of the greatest events in the history of Russia in the 19th century. The reform of 1861 was associated with fundamental changes in the political and socio-economic life of the country. One of its most important results was the formation of a free market for wage labor of people deprived of the means of production and living exclusively by selling their labor power.

The wage labor system became the basis for the development of the Russian national economy. The rapid development of capitalism in the post-reform period multiplied the ranks of hired workers and turned them into a class of Russian society. The latter was inextricably linked with the industrial revolution that took place in the country in the 50-90s of the 19th century.

During the industrial revolution in Russia, a large machine industry was created and established, and a new social type of permanent workers emerged, concentrated in large enterprises in the leading industrial centers of the country (for the size of the Russian working class, see Table 1). The formation of a working class was underway, the basis of which was made up of permanent workers, deprived of the means of production, who had broken ties with the land and their own economy and who worked all year in factories and factories.

Table 1. The size of the Russian working class from 1860 to 1900 (millions of people)*

Categories of workers	1860	1880	1890	1900
Workers of large capitalist enterprises	0,72	1,25	1,50	2,81
Including: factory mining and mining transport (railroad workers and ship workers of shipping companies)	0,49** 0,17 0,06	0,72 0,28 0,25	0,84 0,34 0,32	1,70 0,51*** 0,60
Construction	0,35	0,70	1,00	1,40****
Workers of small, handicraft (urban and rural) industries	0,80	1,50	2,00	2,75
Laborers, day laborers, loaders, carters, diggers, forest workers, etc.	0,63	1,20	2,00	2,50
Agricultural	0,70	2,70	3,50	4,54*****
Total:	3,20	7,35	10,00	14,00

* The working class of Russia from its inception to the beginning of the 20th century. M., 1989. P. 273.
**Includes manufacturing workers.
***Excluding auxiliary workers
**** data for 1897
***** Excluding workers in Finland, whose total number in 1900 reached 150 thousand people.

By the early 1860s, in the Russian manufacturing industry, the majority of workers, who were, as a rule, quit-rent peasants, were hired into factories on a free-hire basis. In mining production, civilian labor also began to be used. At the same time, forced labor was still widespread in Russian industry. Thus, on the eve of the reform of 1861, out of the total number of all Russian workers (800 thousand people), a third were serfs. In the first post-reform; years, the number of workers in patrimonial and possessional manufactories decreased due to their departure to the countryside.

The predecessors of the proletariat of the capitalist era were both serfs and civilian workers. But the genetic, direct predecessor of the factory proletariat were, first of all, civilian workers who grew up along with capitalist industry from a “merchant establishment.” Already on the eve of the reform of 1861, such workers made up the overwhelming majority in industrial enterprises, and, above all, in textile factories in the center of the country.

Typically, until the 1880s, May workers in factories were practiced on the basis of a “verbal” or written contract for a period! for a year, most often “from Easter to Easter”. Before the expiration of the established period, the workers’ passports were taken into the office, and they were actually deprived of their freedom, without the right to demand early payment. The arbitrariness of entrepreneurs was not limited in any way, although the government took some steps towards “care” for the workers.

The internal regulations of the Moscow Goujon Metal Plant were typical at this time. It was written in them: “It is forbidden to leave the factory before the expiration of the contractual period without the consent of the owner or to demand from him before that period any increase in pay above the established one. For a strike between workers, stop work before the expiration of the period established with the owner in order to force it to increase "the pay they receive, the guilty are subject to punishments determined by the "Code of Punishments" (Article 1358, ed. 1866)."

At the same time, employers had the right, at their discretion, to dismiss a worker at any time for “bad work” or “impudent behavior.” Not only their work was regulated, but also their personal lives: in many enterprises, workers were forced to buy goods from a hardware store at inflated prices; those living in the factory barracks were absent for certain periods of time. The workers were not protected from bullying and insults from the owner and his henchmen. In Moscow, for example, even in the early 90s of the XIX century. At the Karl Thiel and Co. factory, rods were used.

However, by the end of the 1850s, in government circles, among their most liberal representatives, an understanding had matured that with the liberation of the peasants it was no longer possible to maintain the previous laws on workers, and that the need to develop factory legislation was obvious. In the periodical press of all directions, voices were heard calling for a solution to the “labor issue” from a moderate-liberal position. Since that time, various Russian departments began to create special commissions one after another. The first of them was formed in 1859 in St. Petersburg under the capital's governor general. St. Petersburg entrepreneurs took an active part in its work. The commission was entrusted with the task of conducting a survey of factories and factories in St. Petersburg (and its district) - the largest commercial and industrial center, where the largest number of the working population was concentrated.

The result of the commission’s work was the preparation of the “Draft Rules for Factories and Factories in St. Petersburg and the District,” which regulated the working conditions of workers and the responsibility of entrepreneurs.

The project preserved the well-known norms of traditional regulation of factory life (determining the amount of wages, fines for certain offenses, distribution of working hours, etc.). However, according to the new rules, it was prohibited to employ children under 12 years of age, night work for minors (12-16 years old), and also limited the working time of children 12-14 years old to 10 hours. The project planned to establish certain sanitary standards in factories and residential premises and, for the first time, the responsibility of entrepreneurs for accidents with workers. Supervision over the implementation of these rules was entrusted to the factory inspectorate of officials. She was given the right to inspect factories at any time and demand information about workers’ wages, conditions of employment, etc.

The draft rules were highly appreciated by Russian officials. They considered it possible to extend their action to the entire empire. The project was sent to the provincial administration and entrepreneurs for information.

Assessments and opinions about him were ambiguous and largely contradictory both among industrialists and among the local administration. The majority of large St. Petersburg manufacturers recognized it as “satisfactory”, and the legislative regulation of the work of minors was beneficial for themselves. Despite the fact that at the enterprises of St. Petersburg, in comparison with other industrial centers of the country, significantly fewer children under 12 years of age worked, however, even here there were open opponents of restricting the work of minors. In this part, they assessed the bill as “not entirely positive.” On the contrary, many factory owners in the Central Industrial Region resolutely opposed its main points. Moscow entrepreneurs were against the restriction of child labor, the introduction of a government factory inspectorate and demanded “to make them judges in their own business.” They questioned compliance with safety requirements and did not agree to be held responsible for injuries to workers.

Many entrepreneurs opposed government inspection of factories. Their position was especially harsh and almost unanimous regarding the right granted to the factory inspector to visit industrial enterprises “at any time of the day.” Many saw this as “a distrust of manufacturers that was insulting to their honor” and believed that supervision of factories should be subordinated to the Manufacturing Council, respectively its Moscow branch and local manufacturing committees, i.e. to the manufacturers themselves. This position of Moscow commercial and industrial circles was shared by many industrialists, who directly and openly stated:

"The supervision of factories should be entrusted to the manufacturers themselves." These demands of entrepreneurs were supported by the Manufacturing Council, and its Moscow branch expressed its readiness to take on the functions of monitoring the implementation of the draft rules in close contact with the police.

Further work on the project was continued by the Special Commission for the revision of factory and craft statutes, known as the A. F. Stackelberg Commission (member of the Council of the Minister of Internal Affairs), created in the same year on the proposal of the Minister of Finance A. M. Knyazhevich to Alexander II. The findings of the 1859 commission, reviews of the draft rules received locally from entrepreneurs, etc. were transferred to it.

All these materials were taken into account by the Stackelberg Commission when developing the Charter on Industry, which envisaged fairly broad reforms. The central place in it was occupied by articles regulating the relationship between entrepreneurs and workers.

In their work, the drafters of the bill used the accumulated experience of Western European legislation. The most important projected changes and innovations concerned the work of children and minors and the creation of industrial courts with elected judges from factory owners and workers equally. According to the draft new factory regulations, children under 12 years of age were not allowed to work, the working day for minors (from 12 to 18 years old) was set at no more than 10 hours a day, and night work was prohibited for them. Responsibility for violation of these rules was assigned to entrepreneurs, and control over them was assigned to a special government inspection with broad rights and powers.

But the bill continued to punish workers for participating in strikes, but formally introduced penalties from employers for their agreements among themselves to lower wages. The need to “provide” workers in case of accidents was proclaimed. Almost half of the paragraphs of the charter (130 out of 259) were devoted to the creation and regulation of the activities of an institution new to Russian legislation - elected industrial courts. In factory centers, conflicts related to strikes, fines, violations of mandatory regulations, compensation to workers for injuries, etc. were subject to investigation. The bill envisaged granting workers a certain freedom to strike and freedom of organization.

However, under the autocratic regime, the liberal idea of conciliation proceedings in bodies composed of elected representatives of capitalists and workers was replaced by a government-bureaucratic approach to resolving the labor issue. As a result, the consideration of disputes that arose between workers and entrepreneurs was transferred to justices of the peace, who were appointed from representatives of the ruling classes. In industrial centers, industrialists themselves often became justices of the peace.

The developed law on industrial courts, which provided for transparency and the conduct of cases in workers’ free time, could become extremely important and useful for them. A fairly broad application of the future law was envisaged: not only large industrial enterprises, but also small craft and handicraft workshops using hired labor were subject to general factory supervision.

The general character of the new bill was undoubtedly liberal in nature. However, like many other similar projects, it was safely shelved in the ministerial archives. During this period, the autocratic government could still make do with old legislative norms and local administrative and police measures. The consistent implementation of the liberal ideas contained in the project on the “labor issue” has not yet become a vital necessity. There was also the opposition of Russian entrepreneurs (especially Moscow ones, who consistently opposed two fundamental points: the introduction of factory inspections and restrictions on the use of child labor), whose position and pressure could not be ignored and, of course, was taken into account by the government. But this circumstance was not the main reason for the non-approval of the law.

In general, despite some perceived restrictions (Moscow industrialists came to terms with some of them), the project opened up very real opportunities and advantages for them: freedom to create and operate business unions and bourgeois conciliatory institutions. However, the situation in the country was such that in the conditions of reform in the 60s, both the main and main attention of government circles and the mood in society were focused on other reforms, and primarily on the peasant issue. At the same time, by 1866, when the final consideration of the bill proposed by the Stackelberg Commission took place, the government was essentially curtailing its course towards progressive reforms in the country and taking a course towards strengthening the reaction.

In the 60-70s of the XIX century. The workers' position remained without rights and was characterized by cruel forms of labor. Often, factory enterprises had internal regulations drawn up by the owners themselves and introduced without any explanation to the workers. One of the first factory inspectors of the Moscow province, professor at Moscow University I. I. Yanzhul stated: “The owner of the factory is an unlimited ruler and legislator, who is not constrained by any laws, and he disposes of them purely in his own way, the workers owe him “unquestioning obedience,” as the rules of one factory say."

In the Moscow province, the most typical was a 12-hour working day, but in a number of enterprises it lasted 14, 15, 16 hours or more. In most factories the number of working days per year was large, and Sunday work was common. The workers were subjected to extreme arbitrariness on the part of their employers. The latter included clauses in the work contract that deprived the worker of any freedom. The system of fines was developed to the point of virtuosity. Often the amount of fines was not determined at all in advance. I. I. Yanzhul repeatedly found a laconic entry in the rules of many factories: “Those caught violating factory rules are fined at the discretion of the owner.”

Fines from workers, levied on a wide variety of occasions and without reason, without specifying a reason, were at the complete disposal of the entrepreneur. They sometimes reached half of the earnings, i.e. The worker gave 50 kopecks from the ruble he earned. There were cases when, in addition to the fines, a penalty was imposed, for example, 10 rubles for leaving the factory. The total amount of fines reached several thousand rubles a year in some factories and was an important source of income.

The factory owners considered themselves to have the right, despite the law that prohibited them from arbitrarily lowering wages before the expiration of the contract, to reduce it at any time at their own discretion.

As I. I. Yanzhul testified, workers suffered from extreme uncertainty about the timing of salary payments. As a rule, they were not specified in the work contract, and the owner gave money to the workers either twice - at Easter and Christmas, or three or four times (sometimes more often) a year. Everything depended on the will of the owner.

The workers had to beg the manufacturer for the money they earned as a special favor. In some factories, the following procedure was practiced: they were not given to the worker at all for a year (until the end of the hiring period). The money he needed for taxes was sent directly to the volost elders or elders. Under such arrangements, the worker was forced to take out loans from factory shops, to which he was often an unpaid debtor for the entire year. Factory shops provided such income to manufacturers that some of their owners made it a condition of hiring workers that they must take food only from the owner. According to Yanzhul, a large share of the profits of some manufacturers came precisely from the sale of goods from factory shops, and not from factory production. At the same time, the sanitary and hygienic working and living conditions of workers in factories were terrible.

The end of 1860 and the beginning of the 1870s were marked by growing discontent among workers and the strengthening of the labor movement. Relations between workers and entrepreneurs in the textile, primarily cotton, industry, the leading industry in the country, are especially strained.

The strike at the Nevskaya paper spinning mill in St. Petersburg in May 1870, in which 800 weavers and spinners took part, received a wide response. Their demand is an increase in piecework wages. The trial of its organizers made public the wild outrage at the factory. The jury sentenced the instigators to only a few days of arrest, and the higher court acquitted everyone. This circumstance caused a government ban on publishing information about strikes in the press and the publication of a secret circular, but which recommended that governors not allow the “case” of strikes to proceed to trial and expel their instigators administratively.

In August 1872, there was a huge strike at the Krenholm manufactory with 7 thousand workers. The nature of the demands and the persistence with which the workers defended them made it an outstanding event in the labor movement of its time.

Strikes at the Neva Paper Mill and at the Krenholm Manufactory gave rise to the publication of statements in the press about the emergence of a “labor question” in Russia. The events at the Nevskaya paper spinning mill in May 1870 are assessed by researchers as a turning point in government policy on the “labor issue.”

In Russian government circles, long-standing disagreements have once again arisen on a fundamental issue - about two possible ways to prevent a revolutionary threat. As the inadequacy of the policy of repression became apparent, the voices of supporters of further reforms grew stronger.

In connection with the protests of the workers of the Nevsky Paper Mill, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a circular dated July 6, 1870, in which it was recognized that this strike was “a completely new phenomenon, which has not yet appeared until now.” The circular was sent to local governors with the requirement “that they have the strictest and unrelenting supervision over the factory and factory population.” Following this, in October, Minister of Internal Affairs A.E. Timashev, in a report to Alexander II, raised the question of the need to develop a law regulating “the relationship between factory owners and workers, as well as employers and employees in general.” A.E. Timashev considered it necessary to establish certain limits to the exploitation of workers by entrepreneurs (potentially dangerous in the social aspect) and create for them a guaranteed legal basis that ensures strict compliance by workers with employment agreements. The need for such an approach was also heard in the words of the Minister of Justice, Mr. K. I. Palen, who emphasized the “universally noticed licentiousness in the working class and complete disrespect for contracts”; workers often violate the contract concluded with the entrepreneur, quit their jobs, and as a result, the owners are often left without workers.

In October 1870, a “Commission for the Settlement of Employment Relations” was created under the chairmanship of Adjutant General N.P. Ignatiev, a member of the State Council, formerly the Governor General of St. Petersburg. She was entrusted with the task of developing measures to “improve the living conditions of workers.” The commission found itself in a difficult position, because it had to be guided in its activities by “the highest will regarding the best provision of the working class and the establishment of strong relations between employers and employees,” which corresponded to the protective course of government policy in the “labor issue.”

However, this direction, which determined the activities of the commission, came into clear contradiction with the ideas of its members on the issue that was to be dealt with. Initially, it was regarded as having “certain exceptional properties” and concerned “those relations that in essence depend very little on the regulation of the law; its requirements in this case are mainly formal.”

With the start of the work of the “Employment Adjustment Commission,” attention to the “labor issue” increased significantly both in society and in the press of various directions. It intensified under the influence of the events of the European labor movement, which was marked by an attempt to create the first proletarian state - the “Paris Commune”. “We cannot help but be affected by the profound upheavals in Europe in our affairs, no matter how domestic they may be,” stated V.P. Bezobrazov. According to the observations of P. Paradizov, never “the Russian press of all directions paid so much attention to the “labor issue” as during this period.”

Discussion of the project revealed different approaches and opinions, often very contradictory. The review of the Minister of Finance (1872), which contained quite a few comments on individual provisions, generally expressed complete satisfaction with the prepared bill. It noted that the project achieved a combination of the “highest will” with the commission’s task set for itself “to avoid in every possible way the regulation of relations between employers and employees, limiting the rules of law relating to this subject to the limits of the strictest necessity and providing full scope for mutual voluntary agreement of the parties” 33 . The project of the Ignatiev Commission met, according to the assessment of the St. Petersburg mayor D. F. Trepov, the tasks facing the government, since “if possible, it balances in the face of the law the morals of both parties, both employers and employees, allowing only those deviations from the unconditional principle of legality that are caused and justified by practical necessity."

Among Russian industrialists, Ignatiev's project was criticized mainly on issues related to working hours and the age limit for minors. Speaking at the commission of the Society for the Promotion of Russian Industry and Trade (hereinafter referred to as ODSRPiT) in St. Petersburg, entrepreneurs spoke out in favor of using child labor from the age of 10. The Moscow Exchange Committee confirmed the conclusion of the Moscow branch of the Manufacturing Council, which prohibited the work of children under 11 years of age and limited the working time of minors (11-15 years old) to 10 hours a day; in case of round-the-clock work - no more than 8 hours per day.

At the first All-Russian Trade and Industrial Congress, held in 1870 in St. Petersburg, a resolution was adopted that “in the new charter on the factory industry, the limitation on the number of working hours for adults and minors and the very admission of the latter to work would be agreed with laws drawn up recently on this subject in other states" 36.

At the same time, a major official, a well-known public figure, secretary of the DSRPiT K. A. Skalkovsky spoke out against the legislative protection of workers, saying that “in the West it is possible to limit the work of minors, but we don’t have it... In Russia, such a measure would be restrictive and would have an impact It would be hard on the working class itself, which is extremely poor." Factory owner Syromyatnikov delivered a heated tirade in defense of “free labor of the people.” But the majority of the congress participants, consisting of representatives of professors, officials, and others, fully supported the legislative implementation of labor protection for workers.

With all the diversity of opinions expressed and assessments on individual points, in general, the “Charter on the personal hiring of workers and servants” was recognized by official circles (including the Ministry of Finance) as too “pro-worker”, insufficiently taking into account the interests of entrepreneurs and industry, which is mainly sealed his fate. At its core, the project actually represented an attempt at an eclectic combination of incompatible ideas and trends. The bill was supposed to allow, under the strictest regulation, the organization of artels (some kind of development of workers' initiative) and at the same time the introduction of work books, which were a means of restricting the freedom of workers, stifling their elementary "independent activity."

In January 1872, the project was transferred to the State Council, but its discussion did not take place. In the same year it was revised by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then it was sent for review to the relevant departments, again various reviews were received, and at this point the work was interrupted. They resumed in the interdepartmental commission created in 1874 under the chairmanship of P. L. Valuev. For more efficient and effective work, she was given the right to submit the prepared draft to the State Council without preliminary conclusions from various departments. All materials from Ignatiev’s commission were transferred to it.

P. A. Valuev himself was directly involved in consolidating the developments of previous projects into a single document. At the same time, he purposefully excluded articles that either contained the liberal sentiments of his predecessors or allowed the development of “independent activity” of workers. Provisions on artels were excluded from the bill, and articles on work books became central to the work of the commission.

In March 1875, the work of the commission was completed. As a result, three bills were developed: “Regulations on the hiring of workers”, “Rules on the hiring of servants” and “Rules on the provision and acceptance of training in crafts, skills and technical production”. Together with the feedback received from breeders and manufacturers, the bills were sent to the State Council. In January 1876, their discussion began, which revealed serious disagreements; ultimately, it was decided to limit the publication of rules only to the main categories of workers: factory, construction and rural workers, while reducing the level of labor protection requirements; the principle of a mandatory work book was not supported. This decision in one of the notes of the State Council was motivated by the fact that the proposed abolition of passports was not carried out, therefore, there was no need for work books. Later, in February 1880, the State Council more categorically stated - also signed by Valuev - that “one cannot but fear that the new law on workers, built on the above-mentioned beginning (meaning the introduction of work books. - L. K.), if approved, did not serve as a reason and a means to intensify, and perhaps to more successful than before, criminal attempts of this kind,” i.e. overthrow of the existing system.

The Ministry of Justice was instructed to develop legislatively rules on punitive measures and the standards for their application to possible violators of the laws being prepared. By the spring of 1879, such rules were prepared. The commission's work on the bill continued for some time. She left behind an extensive bill and a lot of paperwork. But the many years of activity of the Valuev commission, as well as its predecessors, also ended without results.

In an atmosphere of increasingly growing social tension and the growth of the strike movement in the country, the royal decree of February 4, 1880 ordered the State Council to consider the feasibility of approving the bill. At the same time, the preference was emphasized for issuing separate rules on hiring on the proposals of ministers if the need arose. Based on the current situation, the State Council recognized the adoption of the prepared laws as untimely.

For the first time in Russia, compulsory health insurance for workers was introduced. At the same time, workers had to be treated at the expense of entrepreneurs (as under the law of 1903). The latter were obliged to provide workers with the necessary first medical aid directly at the enterprise and provide outpatient treatment free of charge. In all other cases (hospital treatment, obstetric care, etc.), the owner of the enterprise, who did not have his own hospital, could, by agreement with nearby zemstvos or city medical institutions, treat his workers there. In the absence of such institutions, responsibility for providing medical care to workers was generally removed.

The law on health insurance had no analogue in current Russian legislation. Its essence was compulsory, compulsory insurance of workers of a given enterprise, united for this purpose in factory sickness funds. The minimum number of members of the fund was set at 200 people (enterprises with fewer workers were united into one common fund). The capital of sickness funds intended for the payment of benefits was made up of mandatory contributions from workers in the amount of 1-2% of wages (depending on the number of participants and the decision of the meeting of all members), as well as additional payments from industrialists equal to 2/3 of the total contribution of workers. Penalties also went there. The owner of the enterprise became the actual owner of the cash register, since its funds were under his control (in order to avoid their use as a strike fund in case of a strike). The self-government of health insurance funds proclaimed by law remains only on paper. In practice, their management was transferred to the hands of entrepreneurs and under the strict control of the administration. General meetings of all members of the cash registers were not allowed. They were replaced by meetings of authorized persons (no more than 100 people), which were chaired by the owner of the enterprise or a person authorized by him. On the cash board, the workers had an advantage over the owner's representatives by only one vote (with a mandatory odd number of board members). Thus, if any of the workers took the side of the entrepreneur, the latter received a majority of votes. It is no coincidence that the creation of health insurance funds took place in conditions of intense struggle between workers and entrepreneurs, who sought to get their supporters onto the board, which caused endless conflicts.

The Law of 1912 introduced a number of changes to the procedure for calculating insurance coverage. Thus, the amount of pensions and benefits was determined on the basis of 280 working days per year (instead of the previous 260). In some cases (complete loss of vision, both arms or legs), the pension was equal to full wages. For working women, a 6-week maternity benefit was provided, the amount of which was determined from half to full wages.

Sickness benefits were issued before 1912, but then they were entirely dependent on the entrepreneur and were paid mainly from fine capital. Naturally, their sizes were insignificant. Now sickness funds began payments from the fourth day of illness. A worker insured in accordance with the established procedure in case of injury received benefits from the date of the accident. Sickness benefits were to be paid for no more than 26 weeks, and in case of repeated cases, no more than 30 weeks per year. As a result of an accident, they were issued during the first 13 weeks, and then, after establishing the degree of ability to work, the disabled worker was assigned a pension, which went through insurance partnerships. Benefits for illness or injury were established by law in the amount of 1/2 to 2/3 of the salary (if the victim had a dependent wife and young children), in all other cases - in the amount of 1/4 to 1/2 of the salary.

Pensions for complete loss of ability to work were established by the law of 1912, as well as by the law of 1903, in the amount of 2/3 of the average salary based on 280 working days plus in-kind payments (products, apartment), if they occurred, and in case of partial disability - in depending on the degree of disability. Pensions for a worker who died from an accident were paid: to the widow - 1/3, to children - 1/6, in general, payments did not exceed 2/3 of the deceased’s salary. Finally, according to the law of 1912, as well as the law of 1903, it was possible to replace the pension with a lump sum (10-fold capitalization of the pension).

Entrepreneurs achieved the implementation of almost all the requirements put forward by them during the preparation of insurance laws, which was reflected in the legislative act of June 23, 1912. However, they were in no hurry to implement it, especially since the exact date of entry into force of the law was not indicated. Despite the lengthy preparation of the bills, on the eve of the law's entry into force, "the government and industrial circles were, for many reasons, unprepared" for their practical implementation, stated the Council of Congresses of Representatives of Trade and Industry. Thus, the organization of sickness funds began only in mid-1913, and, according to official data, by July 1, 1914, 2,860 funds were operating in Russia (or were in the process of organization), covering more than 2 million workers, which accounted for 89% of those provided for by law. cash desks (86% of workers). Only 63% of all health insurance funds began to function, covering 64% of workers. By April 1, 1916, the number of operating cash desks had increased to 2,254 from 1,762 thousand participants, but this was much less than planned in the summer of 1914. As a result, by April 1916, insurance covered less than 3/4 of the total number of factories workers who were covered by the state insurance law.

The creation of district insurance partnerships also proceeded more slowly than originally envisaged. At the same time, the synchronization of their opening with the organization of sickness funds, as provided by law, was often not observed. If the insurance partnership was not yet functioning, then the sickness funds were exempt from issuing benefits to disabled workers and funeral money. And in such cases, and they were very numerous, the law of 1903 came into force, according to which all injured workers were subject to individual liability of entrepreneurs. On the contrary, in practice there were many such examples when insurance partnerships operated at enterprises and health insurance funds were not yet functioning. Of course, this complicated the conduct of insurance operations.

The generalized picture of the activities of sickness funds is reproduced by the calculations of the People's Commissariat of Labor in 1919-1920. According to incomplete data for 1915, materials from 1,605 cash desks with 1,248,626 members, whose budget was equal to 10.6 million rubles, were studied. Contributions from workers amounted to 6.3 million rubles, and from entrepreneurs - 4.2 million rubles. Of the last amount, 765 thousand rubles. (17.2%) went to benefits for disabled workers, which sharply reduced the possibilities for medical and other types of assistance. Of the total amount, 10.6 million rubles. 7.1 million rubles were spent on benefits, including 4.5 million rubles for general diseases. (64.1%), but accidents - 764 thousand rubles. (10.7%), for childbirth - 725 thousand rubles. (10.2%), for funerals - 289 thousand rubles. (4.1%). For general illnesses, the average benefit amount was 75 kopecks. per day with a salary of 1 rub. 25 kopecks Thus, benefits amounted to 60% of the salary; According to the law, cash offices could issue from 25 to 50% of wages to single workers and from 50 to 100% to family workers. During childbirth, benefits reached 51 kopecks. per day with an average salary of 74 kopecks, i.e. equaled 68.9% of salary. According to the law, cash desks could issue from 50 to 100% of salaries. Based on the materials of the sickness funds (1914-1916), it is clear that payments to disabled workers constituted a significant and at the same time increasing percentage of the fund's budget. Accordingly, they decreased for family members, which was explained by the increase in the number of disabled workers, whose compensation absorbed a large and growing part of the funds of the cash registers. At the same time, general data indicate that sickness funds did not have sufficient funds and were forced to limit the provision of benefits to the minimum provided for by the law of 1912. Assistance for illnesses of family members was not provided everywhere and was completely insufficient.

However, there were other examples. Let us refer to the activities of the health insurance fund of the Bogorodsko-Glukhovskaya manufactory, which had 13.5 thousand members. Deductions from workers' salaries to the cash register were set at 2%. It issued benefits at the highest level established by the law of 1912. Dependents - family members of the fund's participants - also received sickness benefits. In 1915, the total amount of payments under this article amounted to 8.9 thousand rubles. In total, in 1914, 84.3 thousand rubles were paid to workers, in 1915 - 124.2 thousand rubles, i.e. 76.5% and 87.1% of the total amount collected. The conditions of the cash register were very satisfactory to the workers, especially the decision, but in which women in labor were paid a full salary 279. However, when the cash register of the Bogorodsko-Glukhovskaya manufactory decided to issue benefits to single workers in the amount of 2/3 of their earnings, as well as to female workers, members of the cash register, who were absent from work due to the illness of their children, these decisions were canceled by the Moscow provincial presence as “not consistent with the law” . The fund's appeal to the Workers' Insurance Council did not yield positive results.

Insurance laws limited the circle of those insured both by territorial and production characteristics, covering only part of the working class. They concerned only two types of insurance: accidents and illness. A significant gap in the law, which greatly reduced its significance, was the exclusion of insurance for old age, disability and death. In addition, the amounts of benefits and pensions provided for by law were very low, and in practice they were often cut even further. At their core, insurance laws were contradictory: they combined elements of bourgeois law with police and security measures, depriving insurance institutions of a certain independence and placing them at the mercy of officials, police and entrepreneurs. The implementation of insurance laws was slow, often slowed down and violated by entrepreneurs, and limited by administrative intervention and control. But, despite all the costs, this was the first experience of implementing state (compulsory) insurance in Russia, carried out in line with liberal-bourgeois reforms and combined with attempts to establish legal norms in labor and labor legislation. To a certain extent, insurance reforms eased the economic and legal situation of workers.

Estates and classes.

The entire urban and rural population was divided “according to the difference in rights of state” into four main categories: nobility, clergy, urban and rural inhabitants.

The nobility remained the privileged class. It shared into personal and hereditary.

Right to personal nobility, which was not inherited, received by representatives of various classes who were in the civil service and had the lowest rank in the Table of Ranks. By serving the Fatherland, one could receive hereditary, i.e., inherited, nobility. To do this, one had to receive a certain rank or award. The emperor could grant hereditary nobility for successful entrepreneurial or other activities.

City dwellers- hereditary honorary citizens, merchants, townspeople, artisans.

Rural inhabitants, Cossacks and other people engaged in agriculture.

The country was in the process of forming a bourgeois society with its two the main classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. At the same time, the predominance of semi-feudal agriculture in the Russian economy contributed to the preservation and two main classes of feudal society - landowners and peasants.

The growth of cities, the development of industry, transport and communications, and the increase in the cultural needs of the population lead to the second half of the 19th century. to increase the proportion of people professionally engaged in mental work and artistic creativity - intelligentsia: engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc.

Peasantry.

The peasants are still constituted the vast majority population of the Russian Empire. Peasants, both former serfs and state-owned ones, were part of self-governing rural societies - communities Several rural societies made up the volost.

Community members were connected mutual guarantee in paying taxes and fulfilling duties. Therefore, there was a dependence of the peasants on the community, manifested primarily in the restriction of freedom of movement.

For the peasants there was special volost court, whose members were also elected by the village assembly. At the same time, the volost courts made their decisions not only on the basis of legal norms, but also guided by customs. Often these courts punished peasants for such offenses as wasting money, drunkenness, and even witchcraft. In addition, peasants were subject to certain punishments that had long been abolished for other classes. For example, volost courts had the right to sentence members of their class who had not reached 60 years of age to flogging.

Russian peasants revered their elders, viewing them as bearers of experience and traditions. This attitude extended to the emperor and served as a source of monarchism, faith in the “tsar-father” - an intercessor, guardian of truth and justice.

Russian peasants professed Orthodoxy. Unusually harsh natural conditions and the associated hard work - suffering, the results of which did not always correspond to the efforts expended, the bitter experience of lean years immersed the peasants in the world of superstitions, signs and rituals.

Liberation from serfdom brought to the village big changes:

P First of all, the stratification of the peasants intensified. The horseless peasant (if he was not engaged in other non-agricultural work) became a symbol of rural poverty. At the end of the 80s. in European Russia, 27% of households were horseless. Having one horse was considered a sign of poverty. There were about 29% of such farms. At the same time, from 5 to 25% of owners had up to ten horses. They bought large land holdings, hired farm laborers and expanded their farms.

a sharp increase in the need for money. The peasants had to pay redemption payments and a poll tax, have funds for zemstvo and secular fees, for rent payments for land and for repaying bank loans. The majority of peasant farms were involved in market relations. The main source of peasant income was the sale of bread. But due to low yields, peasants were often forced to sell grain to the detriment of their own interests. The export of grain abroad was based on the malnutrition of the village residents and was rightly called by contemporaries “hungry export.”

Poverty, hardships associated with redemption payments, lack of land and other troubles firmly tied the bulk of the peasants to the community. After all, it guaranteed its members mutual support. In addition, the distribution of land in the community helped the middle and poorest peasants to survive in case of famine. Allotments were distributed among community members interstriped, and were not brought together in one place. Each community member had a small plot (strip) in different places. In a dry year, a plot located in a lowland could produce a quite bearable harvest; in rainy years, a plot on a hillock helped out.

There were peasants committed to the traditions of their fathers and grandfathers, to the community with its collectivism and security, and there were also “new” peasants who wanted to farm independently at their own risk. Many peasants went to work in the cities. The long-term isolation of men from the family, from village life and rural work led to an increased role of women not only in economic life, but also in peasant self-government.

The most important problem of Russia on the eve of the 20th century. was to turn the peasants - the bulk of the country's population - into politically mature citizens, respecting both their own and others' rights and capable of active participation in public life.

Nobility.

After the peasant reforms In 1861, the stratification of the nobility was rapidly progressing due to the active influx of people from other segments of the population into the privileged class.

Gradually, the most privileged class lost its economic advantages. After the peasant reform of 1861, the area of land owned by the nobles decreased by an average of 0.68 million acres 8* per year. The number of landowners among the nobles was declining. Moreover, almost half of the landowners had estates that were considered small. In the post-reform period, most of the landowners continued to use semi-feudal forms of farming and went bankrupt.

Simultaneously Some of the nobles widely participated in entrepreneurial activities: in railway construction, industry, banking and insurance. Funds for doing business were obtained from the redemption under the reform of 1861, from the leasing of land and on collateral. Some nobles became owners of large industrial enterprises, took prominent positions in companies, and became owners of shares and real estate. A significant part of the nobles joined the ranks of owners of small commercial and industrial establishments. Many acquired the profession of doctors, lawyers, and became writers, artists, and performers. At the same time, some of the nobles went bankrupt, joining the lower strata of society.

Thus, the decline of the landowner economy accelerated the stratification of the nobility and weakened the influence of the landowners in the state. In the second half of the 19th century. the nobles lost their dominant position in the life of Russian society: political power was concentrated in the hands of officials, economic power in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia became the ruler of thoughts, and the class of once all-powerful landowners gradually disappeared.

Bourgeoisie.

The development of capitalism in Russia led to the growth of the bourgeoisie. Continuing to be officially listed as nobles, merchants, bourgeois, and peasants, representatives of this class played an increasingly important role in the life of the country. Since the time of the “railway fever” of the 60s and 70s. The bourgeoisie was actively replenished at the expense of officials. By serving on the boards of private banks and industrial enterprises, officials provided a link between state power and private production. They helped industrialists obtain lucrative orders and concessions.

The period of the formation of the Russian bourgeoisie coincided with the active activity of the populists within the country and with the growth of the revolutionary struggle of the Western European proletariat. Therefore, the bourgeoisie in Russia looked at the autocratic government as its protector from revolutionary uprisings.

And although the interests of the bourgeoisie were often infringed by the state, they did not dare to take active action against the autocracy.

Some of the founders of famous commercial and industrial families - S.V. Morozov, P.K. Konovalov - remained illiterate until the end of their days. But they tried to give their children a good education, including a university education. Sons were often sent abroad to study commercial and industrial practice.

Many representatives of this new generation of the bourgeoisie sought to support scientists and representatives of the creative intelligentsia, and invested money in the creation of libraries and art galleries. A. A. Korzinkin, K. T. Soldatenkov, P. K. Botkin and D. P. Botkin, S. M. Tretyakov and P. M. Tretyakov, S. I. played a significant role in the expansion of charity and patronage of the arts. Mamontov.

Proletariat.

One more The main class of industrial society was the proletariat. The proletariat included all hired workers, including those employed in agriculture and crafts, but its core were factory, mining and railway workers - the industrial proletariat. His education took place simultaneously with the industrial revolution. By the mid-90s. XIX century About 10 million people were employed in the wage labor sector, of which 1.5 million were industrial workers.

The working class of Russia had a number of features:

He was closely connected with the peasantry. A significant part of the factories and factories were located in villages, and the industrial proletariat itself was constantly replenished with people from the village. A hired factory worker was, as a rule, a first-generation proletarian and maintained a close connection with the village.
Representatives became workers different nationalities.
In Russia there was a significantly greater concentration proletariat in large enterprises than in other countries.

Life of workers.

In factory barracks (dormitories), they settled not according to the workshops, but according to the provinces and districts from which they came. The workers from one locality were headed by a master, who recruited them to the enterprise. Workers had difficulty getting used to urban conditions. Separation from home often led to a drop in moral level and drunkenness. The workers worked long hours and, in order to send money home, huddled in damp and dark rooms and ate poorly.

Workers' speeches for improving their situation in the 80-90s. became more numerous, sometimes they took on acute forms, accompanied by violence against factory management, destruction of factory premises and clashes with the police and even with troops. The largest strike was that broke out on January 7, 1885 at Morozov’s Nikolskaya manufactory in the city of Orekhovo-Zuevo.

Clergy.

Church ministers - the clergy - constituted a special class, divided into black and white clergy. The black clergy - monks - took on special obligations, including leaving the "world". The monks lived in numerous monasteries.

The white clergy lived in the “world”; their main task was to perform worship and religious preaching. From the end of the 17th century. a procedure was established according to which the place of a deceased priest was inherited, as a rule, by his son or another relative. This contributed to the transformation of the white clergy into a closed class.

Although the clergy in Russia belonged to a privileged part of society, rural priests, who made up the vast majority of it, eked out a miserable existence, as they fed on their own labor and at the expense of parishioners, who themselves often barely made ends meet. In addition, as a rule, they were burdened with large families.

The Orthodox Church had its own educational institutions. At the end of the 19th century. in Russia there were 4 theological academies, in which about a thousand people studied, and 58 seminaries, training up to 19 thousand future clergy.

Intelligentsia.

At the end of the 19th century. Of the more than 125 million inhabitants of Russia, 870 thousand could be classified as intelligentsia. The country had over 3 thousand scientists and writers, 4 thousand engineers and technicians, 79.5 thousand teachers and 68 thousand private teachers, 18.8 thousand doctors, 18 thousand artists, musicians and actors.

In the first half of the 19th century. The ranks of the intelligentsia were replenished mainly at the expense of the nobles.

Some of the intelligentsia were never able to find practical application for their knowledge. Neither industry, nor zemstvos, nor other institutions could provide employment for many university graduates whose families experienced financial difficulties. Receiving a higher education was not a guarantee of an increase in living standards, and therefore, social status. This gave rise to a mood of protest.

But besides material reward for their work, the most important need of the intelligentsia is freedom of expression, without which true creativity is unthinkable. Therefore, in the absence of political freedoms in the country, the anti-government sentiments of a significant part of the intelligentsia intensified.

Cossacks.

The emergence of the Cossacks was associated with the need to develop and protect the newly acquired outlying lands. For their service, the Cossacks received land from the government. Therefore, a Cossack is both a warrior and a peasant.

At the end of the 19th century. there were 11 Cossack troops

In villages and villages there were special primary and secondary Cossack schools, where much attention was paid to the military training of students.

In 1869, the nature of land ownership in the Cossack regions was finally determined. Communal ownership of stanitsa lands was consolidated, of which each Cossack received a share of 30 dessiatines. The remaining lands constituted military reserves. It was intended mainly to create new village sites as the Cossack population grew. Forests, pastures, and reservoirs were in public use.

Conclusion:

In the second half of the 19th century. there was a breakdown of class barriers and the formation of new groups of society along economic and class lines. The new entrepreneurial class - the bourgeoisie - includes representatives of the merchant class, successful peasant entrepreneurs, and the nobility. The class of hired workers - the proletariat - is replenished primarily at the expense of peasants, but a tradesman, the son of a village priest, and even a “noble gentleman” were not uncommon in this environment. There is a significant democratization of the intelligentsia, even the clergy is losing its former isolation. And only the Cossacks remain to a greater extent adherents to their former way of life.

Bourgeoisie.

The development of capitalism in Russia led to an increase in the number of bourgeoisies. Continuing to be officially listed as nobles, merchants, bourgeois, and peasants, representatives of this class played an increasingly important role in the life of the country. Among the largest capitalist-industrialists there were many who came from the wealthy merchant class (Gubonin, Mamontovs), nobility (Bobrinskys, Branitskys, Pototskys, Shipovs, von Meck), but there were also many peasants, especially Old Believers (Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Guchkovs, Konovalovs) . Since the time of the “railway fever” of the 60s and 70s. The bourgeoisie was actively replenished at the expense of officials. By serving on the boards of private banks and industrial enterprises, officials provided a link between state power and private production. They helped industrialists obtain lucrative orders and concessions. Abuses on this basis became so widespread that the government was forced in 1884 to ban senior officials from engaging in business activities.

Among the largest domestic entrepreneurs, in addition to the Russians, there were representatives of many peoples of Russia - Ukrainians (I. G. Kharitonenko, the Tereshchenko family), Armenians (A. I. Mantashev, S. G. Lianozov, Gukasovs), Azerbaijanis (T. Tagiyev, M. . Nagiyev), Jews (B.A. Kamenka, Brodskys, Gunzburgs, Polyakovs). Many foreign entrepreneurs also appeared in Russia (Nobel, J. Hughes, G. A. Brocard, L. Knop, G. Hoover, L. A. Urquhart).

And although the interests of the bourgeoisie were often infringed by the state, they did not dare to take active action against the autocracy.

For a long time, the lack of culture and education among entrepreneurs was largely compensated by their natural intelligence, colossal energy and enormous capacity for work. Some of the founders of famous commercial and industrial families - S.V. Morozov, P.K. Konovalov - remained illiterate until the end of their days. But they tried to give their children a good education, including a university education. Sons were often sent abroad to study commercial and industrial practice.

Many representatives of this new generation of the bourgeoisie sought to support scientists and representatives of the creative intelligentsia, and invested money in the creation of libraries and art galleries. Taking care of the development of education and healthcare, industrialists and traders opened hospitals, shelters, and various educational institutions. A. A. Korzinkin, K. T. Soldatenkov, P. K. Botkin and D. P. Botkin, S. M. Tretyakov and P. M. Tretyakov, S. I. played a significant role in the expansion of charity and patronage of the arts. Mamontov.

Savva Ivanovich Mamontov (1841-1918) was a hereditary merchant and entrepreneur. He studied at the Mining Institute and then at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. Mamontov was fond of acting in amateur performances and had extraordinary musical abilities. He lived for several years in Italy, where he studied singing and painting. In 1872, he was elected director of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway Society. Then he built the Donetsk railway. The government offered him to buy the state-owned Nevsky Plant in St. Petersburg, which produces steam locomotives, carriages and ships, including for the War Ministry. To supply the plant with domestic raw materials, Mamontov established a joint-stock company of East Siberian iron smelters.

Mamontov provided significant assistance to such artists as V. A. Serov, K. A. Korovin, M. A. Vrubel. He loved to discover new names in art and look for young talents. The great Russian singer F.I. Chaliapin began his performances on the stage of the Private Opera he created in Moscow.

On his Abramtsevo estate, Mamontov created a unique art center, where he not only stored collected folk art objects, but also organized the production of ceramics (fired clay). Abramtsevo has also become a kind of creative home for talented Russian artists.

Proletariat.

Another main class of industrial society was the proletariat. The proletariat included all hired workers, including those employed in agriculture and crafts, but its core were factory, mining and railway workers - the industrial proletariat. His education took place simultaneously with the industrial revolution. By the mid-90s. XIX century About 10 million people were employed in the wage labor sector, of which 1.5 million were industrial workers.

The Russian working class had a number of characteristics. He was closely connected with the peasantry. A significant part of the factories and factories were located in villages, and the industrial proletariat itself was constantly replenished with people from the villages. Representatives of different nationalities became workers. In Russia there was a significantly greater concentration of the proletariat in large enterprises than in other countries. In 1890, three-quarters of all factory and mining workers were concentrated in enterprises employing more than 100 people, including almost half of them working in enterprises employing 500 or more people.

The hired factory worker was, as a rule, a first-generation proletarian and maintained a close connection with the village. More than half of the proletarians continued to combine industrial and agricultural work. The rhythm of work in many factories took into account agricultural needs. The owners hired workers during the period from Intercession (October 1, old style) to Easter (March - April), and during the harvest season they were forced to release them to work in the villages.

In the city, many workers adhered to the usual norms of community life. In factory barracks (dormitories), they settled not according to the workshops, but according to the provinces and districts from which they came. The workers from one locality were headed by a master, who recruited them to the enterprise. Workers had difficulty getting used to urban conditions. Separation from home often led to a drop in moral level and drunkenness. The workers worked long hours and, in order to send money home, huddled in damp and dark rooms and ate poorly.

The labor movement during this period was a response to the specific actions of “their” factory owners: increasing fines, lowering prices, forced payment of wages in goods from the factory store, etc. It was generally in the nature of an economic struggle in order to improve working conditions and the position of workers. The workers did not raise the issue of their political rights.

Clergy, intelligentsia and Cossacks in post-reform Russia.

Clergy.

Transformations of the 60s The Orthodox clergy were also affected. First of all, the government tried to improve the financial situation of the clergy. In 1862, a Special Presence was created to find ways to improve the life of the clergy, which included all members of the Synod and senior state officials. Social forces were also involved in solving this problem. In 1864, parish trustees arose, consisting of parishioners who not only managed the church affairs of the parish, but were also supposed to help improve the financial situation of the clergy. In 1869-1879 the incomes of parish priests increased significantly due to the abolition of about 2 thousand small parishes and the establishment of annual salaries for them. Old age pensions were introduced for clergy.

The liberal spirit of reforms carried out in the field of education also affected church educational institutions. In 1863, graduates of theological seminaries received the right to enter universities. In 1864, children of clergy were allowed to enter gymnasiums, and in 1866 - to military schools. In 1867, the Synod decided to abolish the heredity of parishes and the right of admission to seminaries for all Orthodox Christians without exception. These measures destroyed class barriers and contributed to the renewal of the clergy.

Intelligentsia.

In the first half of the 19th century. The ranks of the intelligentsia were replenished mainly at the expense of the nobles. After the abolition of serfdom and the reforms of the 60-70s, which made education more accessible to representatives of all ranks and ranks, the number of intelligentsia began to grow at the expense of young people of all ranks. Among the merchants were artists I.K. Aivazovsky and I.I. Shishkin, composer A.K. Glazunov, musicians A.G. and N.G. Rubinstein. Writer A.P. Chekhov was born into the family of a small merchant. The sons of rural priests were the artists V. M. and A. M. Vasnetsov, the historian V. O. Klyuchevsky; historian S. M. Solovyov was the son of a Moscow priest. The artist I. N. Kramskoy and the singer F. I. Chaliapin were born into poor middle-class families. The artist I. E. Repin was the son of a military settler, and V. I. Surikov came from Siberian Cossacks. All of them knew well the needs and aspirations of ordinary people and sought to reflect them in their work.

Cossacks.

At the end of the 19th century. there were 11 Cossack troops - Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Semirechenskoe, Siberian, Transbaikal, Amur, Ussuri. The Cossack population reached 4 million people, including up to 400 thousand in military service. All Cossack troops and regions were subordinate to the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops of the Ministry of War, headed by the ataman of the Cossack troops, who from 1827 was the heir to the throne. At the head of each army was a “mandated” (appointed) ataman, with him - a military headquarters that managed the affairs of the army. In the villages and farms there were village and farm atamans, elected at gatherings (Cossack circle). All men from the age of 18 were required to perform military service. They spent 3 years in the preparatory ranks, then 12 years in combat service with summer camp training, and 5 years in the reserves. A Cossack came to military service with his uniform, equipment, bladed weapons and a riding horse.

In villages and villages there were special primary and secondary Cossack schools, where much attention was paid to the military training of students.

In the second half of the 19th century. Cossack regions become areas of commercial agriculture. The lease of military lands, which the Cossacks rented to the newcomer (non-resident) population, is developing. The Cossacks were also engaged in gardening, tobacco growing, viticulture and winemaking. Horse breeding successfully developed on the lands of various Cossack troops. And although the Cossack villages did not escape stratification, the provision of land here was much higher than among the peasants, especially in European Russia.

With the advent of capitalist relations, the struggle of workers against capitalist exploitation began, which during the manufacturing period took mainly hidden forms and was revealed in isolated actions - spontaneous riots, individual strikes. In England already from the 14th century, in France from the 16th century. Severe laws were systematically issued prohibiting unions of apprentices and strikes. The vague, unconscious aspirations of the nascent proletariat, which had not yet completely distinguished itself from the general mass of the poor, were partially reflected in the theories and views of early communism - from the most primitive utopian ideas of the “community of property” of the 16th-17th centuries. to “worker communism” of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (G. Babeuf and others) and critical-utopian socialism and communism of the 1st half of the 19th century. (K. A. Saint-Simon, R. Owen, C. Fourier, etc.). In the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. wage workers were the most active element among the urban plebeian masses, the support of the most radical movements; but they did not act as an independent political force. Participating in the revolutionary struggle, they defended mainly not specifically proletarian interests, but, in essence, the interests of the bourgeoisie itself.

The emergence of the factory proletariat is associated with the industrial revolution, that is, the transition from manufacturing to machine production. Starting in Great Britain in the 60s. 18th century, it gradually spread to other countries. Historically, the first detachment of the factory proletariat were the workers of textile factories - spinners, then weavers, etc. Factory workers personified the future of the proletariat, but at first they constituted a minority; manufacturing workers prevailed for a long time. The need to resist the owners and overcome mutual competition caused the emergence of coalitions of hired workers - prototypes of later trade unions. In Great Britain they began to appear in the last third of the 18th century, in France - during the Great French Revolution, but were soon banned in both countries. Nevertheless, workers' economic struggles intensified. Strikes became more and more frequent. In general, however, the resistance of the proletariat to exploitation was expressed in that period mainly in spontaneous and violent acts - food riots, arson, destruction of machines (Luddite movement, etc.).

With the advent of machine production, capital’s desire to lengthen the working day (up to 15-17 hours a day or more), the widespread use of female and child labor (up to 50-60% of those employed in the English cotton industry in the 1st half of the 19th century) intensified. which led to an increase in the army of unemployed. The increase in working hours was accompanied by a drop in wages below the physical minimum. Complete lack of rights, exhausting work, hunger, life in slums, illness, early death - such was the lot of factory workers. Open indignation against these unbearable conditions gave rise to the first major independent movements of the working class: Chartism in Great Britain (30-50s of the 19th century), the Lyon uprisings of 1831 and 1834 in France, and the uprising of Silesian weavers in Germany (1844). They marked the beginning of the political separation of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie and the development of a mass proletarian revolutionary movement. Its main force at that time remained handicraft and manufacturing workers. As machines erased the differences between individual types of labor, displacing the skilled labor of the manufacturing worker with simple machine labor, the interests and living conditions of the proletariat became equal. This contributed to the formation of class consciousness. The advanced English workers during the Chartist period were already aware, in the words of F. Engels, that “... they constitute an independent class with their own interests and principles, with their own worldview...”. In Great Britain (1840), the first ever proletarian party organized on a national scale arose - the National Chartist Association (about 50 thousand members in 1842). In France and Germany, secret workers' societies arose one after another. In 1847 - early 1848, K. Marx and F. Engels, who by that time had developed the main provisions of the theory of scientific communism, wrote at the suggestion of the Union of Communists and published as a program of the latter the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, in which they revealed the world-historical role of the proletariat, the conditions and the goals of his struggle. The founding of the League of Communists marked the beginning of the combination of scientific communism with the labor movement, the transformation of the proletariat from a class “in itself” into a class “for itself”.

In the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1848-49, the working class initially acted as the left wing of bourgeois democracy; the culmination of the struggle of the proletariat in these years was the June uprising of 1848 Parisian workers - “... the first great battle for dominance between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.” The uprising, like a number of workers' uprisings in other countries, was brutally suppressed.

In the middle of the 19th century. in Great Britain there were 4.1 million industrial workers (1851), in France 2.5 million (1848), in Germany 0.9 million (1850), in the USA 1.4 million (1850). The period of rapid growth of large-scale industry in the advanced countries of Western Europe that followed the revolutions of 1848-49 finally brought the factory working class to the forefront of the class struggle. Marx considered the position of the proletariat during this period as the most striking illustration of the general law of capitalist accumulation formulated by him, according to which, under capitalism, “...the accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time the accumulation of poverty, the torment of labor, slavery, ignorance, coarsening and moral degradation at the other extreme.” the opposite pole, that is, on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital.” However, the struggle of the working class created a certain barrier to the growth of poverty. The spread of machine production to new industries (mechanical engineering, etc.) created a need for more complex labor and contributed to the expansion of the initially extremely thin layer of skilled factory workers. It found the main support for the development of trade unions, which gradually achieved legalization to one degree or another (in 1824-1825 in Great Britain, in 1842 in the USA, in 1864 in France, in 1866 in Belgium, in 1869 in Germany, in 1870 in Austria) . Following Great Britain, where workers in the textile industry, after a long and persistent thirty-year struggle, achieved a 10-hour working day (in 1847 - formally for women, in fact for all workers in this industry), factory legislation was introduced in other countries. The development of factory legislation, with all its limitations during this period, meant, according to Marx, the victory of the political economy of labor over the political economy of capital; it contributed, as Marx noted, to the improvement of the physical, moral and intellectual condition of the working class.

A new rise in the labor movement in the 60s. was marked by the establishment of the International Workers' Association - the 1st International (1864) and the formation of a number of national workers' associations: in Great Britain - the British Congress of Trade Unions (1868), in Germany - the General German Workers' Union (1863), and later - the Social Democratic Labor Union Party of Germany (Eisenach) (1869). In France, in the conditions of the political crisis caused by the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune of 1871 arose - the first workers' government in history, which lasted 72 days. The heroic struggle of the Parisian proletariat during the days of the Commune is one of the most important milestones in the history of the international labor movement.

2. Growth of organization and political maturity of the proletariat (1871-1917)

The Paris Commune showed in practice the meaning of the struggle for political power and revealed the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The defeat of the Communards once again revealed the immaturity of the socio-economic conditions for the victory of the proletarian revolution and the comparative underdevelopment of the working class itself. In France, as well as in those countries of Western Europe where the proletariat had just begun to take shape (Italy, Spain, Switzerland), various currents of petty-bourgeois socialism (Proudhonists, Blanquists, Bakuninists, etc.) still retained significant influence. At the same time, the experience of the Paris Commune gave a strong impetus to the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat and its organization. The creation of mass socialist workers' parties began, which arose in most Western European countries after the dissolution (1876) of the 1st International. Marx's teachings spread widely, winning more and more supporters among the advanced workers. Founded in 1889, the 2nd International as a whole took the position of Marxism. The struggle for an 8-hour working day developed; in the USA it acquired especially acute forms and led to the bloody events in Chicago (1886), in memory of which the 2nd International declared May 1 a day of proletarian solidarity and struggle throughout the world for an 8-hour working day. The workers' movement for universal suffrage and other democratic rights and freedoms intensified and brought new successes. The position of trade unions has strengthened: national professional centers have been formed in the main continental countries of Western Europe and in the USA. In Great Britain the number of organized workers has increased from 100 thousand in the early 1940s. 19th century up to 1 million in the 1st half of the 70s. and up to 1.6 million in 1892 (see New trade unions); in 1900 it exceeded 2 million, in 1911 - 3 million, in 1913 - 4 million. In Germany back in 1878 there were only 50 thousand organized workers, in 1890 - about 300 thousand, in 1902 their number exceeded 1 million. , in 1906 - 2 million, in 1909 - 3 million. In France, syndicates in 1890 numbered 140 thousand members, in 1901 - about 600 thousand, in 1911 - over 1 million members. In the USA, trade unions became widespread back in the 40s. 19th century, in 1885 they numbered 500 thousand members, in 1913 - 2.6 million. With the growth of organization, the workers’ resistance to capitalist exploitation also grew; in the last third of the 19th century. the average level of real wages has increased; At the same time, in a number of countries there was a tendency to widen the gap between better and worse paid categories.

The development of pre-monopoly capitalism into monopoly capitalism was accompanied, on the one hand, by the intensification of capitalist exploitation, and on the other, by the rise of strike struggles and the spread of socialist tendencies among the “lower classes” of the working class, partly in left-anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist forms. At the same time, symptoms of “bourgeoisification” of the upper, better-paid layer of workers were revealed, primarily in Great Britain, whose ruling class had already been in power since the mid-19th century. enjoyed the fruits of a colonial and industrial monopoly. Following Great Britain, this labor aristocracy took shape in other European countries and in the USA, where it also became one of the social sources of trade unionism and reformism. The creation of Catholic workers' organizations also dates back to this time. In the European and American labor movement, the struggle between the reformist and revolutionary trends intensified, and it increasingly acquired an international character. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. the number of industrial proletariat in the USA reached 10.4 million people. (1900), in Great Britain 8.5 million (1901), in Germany 8.5 million (1907), in France 3.4 million (1906), in Italy - 2.9 million (1901), in Austria-Hungary 2.3 million people. (1900). The total number of the proletariat in these countries significantly exceeded these figures. In connection with the further expansion of the geographical boundaries of capitalist development and industrialization, the formation of the proletariat began or accelerated in many other countries, including Russia, where the industrial proletariat had formed mainly in the 80-90s of the 19th century. The spread of Marxism in Russia accelerated the formation of an independent labor movement here. At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903), for the first time in the history of the international labor movement, a new type of Marxist party was created - the Bolshevik Party. During the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905-07, the Russian proletariat acted as the hegemonic class, and a new form of political organization of workers arose - the Soviets. The revolution of 1905-07 had a huge impact on the international working class. The task of theoretical development of new problems that confronted proletarian revolutionaries at the stage of imperialism was carried out by V. I. Lenin.

The process of formation of the proletariat on the periphery of the capitalist world (South-Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa) unfolded in an environment of increasing penetration of foreign capital. In view of the general backwardness of socio-economic conditions, the development of the industrial proletariat was limited here at that time to individual centers of capitalist civilization, and it itself bore the strong imprint of these backward conditions. The wider spread of capitalism was accompanied by increased objective differences in the position of the proletariat of the oppressing and oppressed nations.

On the eve of World War I (1914-18), the revolutionary labor movement was growing in many parts of the world. By 1913, the total number of organized workers reached 15 million. The war was a heavy blow for the European proletariat. The 2nd International, in which the social-chauvinist line prevailed, failed. Soon, however, in the context of the emerging general crisis of capitalism in a number of warring countries, including Russia, a revolutionary situation began to emerge. In February 1917, the autocracy was overthrown in Russia. On October 25 (November 7), 1917, an armed uprising of workers and soldiers in Petrograd swept away the bourgeois government. The Great October Socialist Revolution - the first victorious proletarian revolution in history - led to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of Soviet power.

3. The working class in the period from the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia to the Second World War 1939-45

As a result of the October Revolution of 1917, a qualitatively new revolutionary force arose on the world stage - the ruling working class, exercising power in alliance with the working peasantry. Under the influence of the October Revolution, a powerful wave of revolutionary actions of the proletariat arose: the proletarian revolution in Finland (January 1918), the November Revolution of 1918 in Germany, the establishment of Soviet power in Bavaria, Hungary, Slovakia, the seizure of enterprises by workers in Italy, etc. Left groups in the social democratic The movement began to break organizationally with reformism and create communist parties. The 3rd Communist International was founded in Moscow (1919), which became the center of gravity for the revolutionary forces of the working class throughout the world. The number of organized workers in capitalist countries increased to 40 million (1920). But the proletarian vanguard in the West was defeated; “... it turned out that in Western Europe there is a deeper split among the proletariat, more betrayal among the former socialist leaders.”

The extremely difficult task fell on the shoulders of the Soviet working class - to strengthen the power of the Soviets in the context of a capitalist encirclement and to create the material basis of a new society, to build socialism. This task was accomplished with honor through the heroic efforts and selfless labor of the working class and the entire Soviet people. Thus, the Soviet working class made an invaluable contribution to the development of the world revolutionary process.

In developed capitalist countries, the proletariat achieved a number of important gains after World War I: the establishment of an 8-hour working day (previously, in most capitalist countries, a 10-12-hour working day was maintained), recognition of the practice of collective bargaining and the introduction of more progressive social legislation, expansion voting rights, etc. At the same time, in the post-war years there was a strong intensification of labor based on the introduction of the conveyor system and other methods of “rationalization” of production (Taylorism, Fordism). Compared to the pre-war period, the unemployment rate has increased significantly: in 1924-28 it fluctuated in Great Britain from 10 to 12% of the number of employed workers, in Germany from 9 to 18%, in France from 2 to 6%. During the years of World War I, the level of real wages fell sharply; Only by 1929 did workers manage to raise wages again to the pre-war level (Great Britain, Germany), and in a number of countries exceed it (slightly in France, by 30% in the USA, by 50% in Japan). During the years of partial stabilization, there was a decline in the revolutionary activity of workers. However, these years were also marked by individual sharp class clashes (the General Strike of 1926 in Great Britain, revolutionary uprisings of 1927 in Austria, etc.).

The number of the industrial proletariat continued to grow, although very unevenly (faster in Japan, slower in Germany, Great Britain, France, even slower in the USA). At the same time, there was a change in the sectoral structure of the proletariat towards a decrease in the share of light industry workers and a significant increase in the share of workers employed in the production of means of production. Due to the spread of flow-conveyor methods, the main type of factory worker increasingly became a semi-skilled worker-operator (in the USA from the early 20s, in other countries later). The gap in pay for skilled and unskilled labor has decreased significantly compared to the pre-war period; the consequences of the World War, as well as changes in production, gradually undermined the privileged position of the labor aristocracy.

The crisis of 1929-33 brought the most severe disasters upon the working class of capitalist countries. In 1932, the number of unemployed reached 13.2 million in the USA, 5.5 million in Germany, and 3 million in Great Britain. During the period 1933-39, the average annual unemployment rate was 20.8% in the USA and 14% in Great Britain. Real wages have fallen again. In an atmosphere of sharp aggravation of class clashes, the threat of fascism, used by finance capital as a striking force against the revolutionary working class, intensified (in Italy, the fascists came to power back in 1922). The German working class, despite the selflessly courageous struggle of its revolutionary forces, was unable to prevent the Nazis from seizing power (1933) due to the deep split in its ranks. In Austria, workers, among them communists and social democrats, rose up in armed struggle against fascism (Vienna, 1934), but were defeated. In France, the restoration of workers' unity (1934) and the formation of the Popular Front, initiated by the Communist Party (1935), allowed the working class to achieve major successes in the struggle for democracy and important social gains. In Spain, the proletariat became the main force in the National Revolutionary War against Fascism (1936-39). Everywhere the working class fought against the impending new world war.

In colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries, under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia, a powerful wave of national liberation movement arose, into which the proletariat was increasingly drawn into. But the process of its formation proceeded relatively slowly here. In China, the working class began to emerge mainly during the First World War, which pushed the development of national industry; in the early 20s there were about 2.5 million industrial workers here (approximately 1% of the amateur population). In the unfolding anti-imperialist movement, the Chinese working class initially acted as the left wing of bourgeois democracy. Socialist views began to penetrate into the labor movement; along with Marxism, utopian socialism (of the populist type), anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism also became widespread. The first workers' unions were created in China by bourgeois and anarchist elements. Later, the organization of trade unions was headed by the Communist Party (founded in 1921). The number of organized workers increased from 270 thousand in 1920 to 500 thousand in 1925 (when the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was created). During the Revolution of 1925-27, the Chinese proletariat showed itself as an independent force, but its actions (uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou in 1927) were suppressed. The conditions for the struggle of the urban working class in China were extremely unfavorable: the few industrial centers remained islands in the sea of peasants. At the end of the 20s. The Communist Party, which had previously relied mainly on industrial workers, transferred its activities to the countryside, where the anti-feudal peasant war was unfolding.

In India, the formation of the proletariat began in the 2nd half of the 19th century, but due to the colonial nature of the economy and the dominance of British imperialism, it also proceeded slowly. On the eve of the 1st World War, there were 951 thousand factory workers in India, a quarter of a century later (1939) - 1751 thousand. The total number of industrial workers (including craft workers) during the period between the two world wars practically did not change: in 1921 - 15, 7 million, in 1941 - 16 million; their share in the population decreased slightly. In 1925, the Communist Party of India was founded; in 1938, the All-Indian Trade Union Congress, as a result of the merger with the National Federation of Trade Unions (founded in 1920), united over 80% of all organized workers.

The working class grew and became stronger organizationally in a number of Latin American countries—Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Cuba. The formation of the proletariat began or accelerated in many other countries of Latin America (Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia). A single continental professional center was created - the Confederation of Workers of Latin America (1938).

4. The working class during and after the 2nd World War 1939-45

During the 2nd World War, the working class showed itself everywhere not only as an international, but also as a truly national, patriotic force. The Soviet working class withstood the difficult trials of the Great Patriotic War with honor, making, together with the entire people, a decisive contribution to the cause of crushing fascism. In the occupied countries, the working class became the main force of the Resistance movement. After the war, his socio-political weight increased significantly. Communist parties, in the context of the anti-fascist struggle, significantly expanded and strengthened ties with the working class, confirming their vanguard role in the labor movement. By the end of the war and soon after it, in a number of countries in Europe and Asia, with the leading participation of the working class, people's democratic and socialist revolutions unfolded and won (in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, China, East Germany, North Korea , Northern Vietnam).

In nine countries of Western Europe (Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Finland, Luxembourg), coalition governments emerged from representatives of workers' parties (communists, socialists, social democrats) and other anti-fascist forces. With the participation of the working class, a number of progressive socio-economic and political reforms were carried out in these countries. In the context of the desire for unity that gripped the proletarian masses, the World Federation of Trade Unions was born (1945), which included trade unions from 56 countries with a total of 67 million members. Later, part of the positions won by the working class was lost due to the Cold War started by the Western powers and the anti-communism of the right-wing leaders of social democracy, with whose assistance the communists in a number of countries were removed from governments. Most of the Western trade unions left the WFTU (1949), creating the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

With the formation of the world system of socialism, the position of the ruling working class expanded and strengthened, and its role as a creative force increased even more. The development of socialist construction was accompanied by a rapid increase in the number of workers and employees. In the Soviet Union it increased from 40.4 million in 1950 to 90.2 million in 1970, in Bulgaria from 800 thousand to 2.7 million, in Hungary from 1.8 million to 3.6 million. , in the GDR from 5.3 million to 6.9 million, in the MPR from 63 thousand to 201 thousand, in Poland from 5.1 million to 10.1 million, in Romania from 2.1 million. to 5.1 million, in Czechoslovakia from 3.5 million to 6.2 million, in Yugoslavia in 1970 reached 3.9 million. The process of consolidating the power of the working class was not easy: objective and subjective difficulties in the course of socialist construction tried take advantage of the forces of counter-revolution. Their successful overcoming and a decisive struggle against opportunist and nationalist views contributed to the further strengthening of the positions of socialism. The Vietnamese working class made a huge contribution to the heroic struggle of their country for freedom and independence, which ended victoriously in 1975. The working class of the DPRK went through difficult trials, especially during the Patriotic Liberation War (1950-53).

A major success of the world revolutionary movement was the victory of the Cuban Revolution, which put forward the working class of Cuba as the leading force of socialist transformations in this country.

During the course of socialist construction in most socialist countries, the well-being of the working class and all working people has significantly increased, especially through public consumption funds. Workers are guaranteed the right to work, free health care and education. They have ample opportunities to improve their professional qualifications. The material conditions of existence of the working class are determined by the planned development of the economy, price stability, systematic increase in wages, expansion and improvement of the social security system. The cultural, technical and educational level of workers is constantly growing. Profound changes have occurred in their psychology, new forms of social activity of the working class, inherent only to socialism, have emerged, reflecting its leading position in the system of socialist social relations. This is manifested primarily in the increasing role of Marxist-Leninist parties as the political vanguard of the working class, of all working people. Trade unions, which unite the overwhelming majority of workers and employees, participate in the management of production and in the organization of socialist competition. The growth of political consciousness and cultural level of workers, the development of socialist democracy contribute to the further strengthening of the influence of the working class and its mass organizations in all spheres of life. Carrying out its leading role in a socialist society, the working class relies on an alliance with the working peasantry, on the unity of the people, becoming increasingly closer in the process of building a new society with other sections of the working people, including the intelligentsia, which is replenished from among the workers and peasants.

The path of development of the working class in China was difficult, where the transition to socialist transformations took place in conditions of extreme backwardness and the enormous predominance of the peasantry in the country. The number of workers in the PRC over the thirty years preceding its formation ranged from 2.5 to 3.4 million; by 1958 it had increased due to yesterday's peasants to 25.6 million (in 1972 it was estimated at approximately 21-27 million, with the total population in 1971, according to UN estimates, over 750 million people). The social structure of the PRC population was reflected in the composition of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); in 1956 it had 10.7 million members, with workers making up only 14% and peasants 69%. In this situation, which was further complicated by the failure of attempts to voluntarily accelerate the process of industrialization, the leadership of the CPC took over the line of reactionary-utopian and military-barracks “socialism”, of the struggle against the international communist movement and the socialist community from the positions of great-power chauvinism and anti-Sovietism. The Maoists, however, failed to undermine or weaken the cohesion of the working class of the fraternal socialist countries and the Marxist-Leninist parties.

In countries of developed capitalism, post-war economic development was accompanied by an increase in the size of the working class, significant changes in its structure, financial situation and conditions of class struggle. However, these changes occurred very unevenly both across countries and over time. The size of the industrial working class in the USA increased from 22.5 million in 1950 to 31.3 million in 1971, in Great Britain from 11.5 million in 1951 to 12.5 million in 1966, in France from 6.6 million in 1954 to 8.5 million in 1971, in Germany from 8.2 million in 1950 to 13.7 million in 1971, in Italy from 4.6 million in 1954 to 8 million in 1970, in Japan from 8.8 million in 1950 to 19.7 million in 1970. There was a significant shift in its composition in favor of new industries (electrical engineering, radio electronics, chemistry, etc.). In these industries, the most pronounced tendency was to expand the boundaries of the working class due to new professions generated by modern production. Changes in the functions of workers and labor organization caused by scientific and technological progress caused a relative (and sometimes absolute) decrease in the number of workers primarily in physical labor and an increase in the number of workers primarily in mental labor (technicians, supervisors, laboratory assistants, operators of electronic computers and information machines, etc. ), an increase in the share of highly skilled workers (adjusters, repairmen, operators of semi-automatic and automatic production units, etc.) and a significant decrease in the share of unskilled workers. The average level of educational training of workers has risen (in the USA up to 10-12 years of education; in other developed capitalist countries this level ranges from 5 to 10 years). More and more wage workers are getting involved in the service sector. The number of office and sales workers is growing rapidly; in these groups, as in the service sector, the proportion of women is especially high. From 1950 to 1972, the total number of workers and employees in countries of developed capitalism increased from 160 million to 230 million, including in industrial sectors from 85 million to 117 million, in the service sector from 61 million to 106 million ( in agriculture it decreased from 14 million to 7 million).

Contrary to bourgeois and revisionist theories that belittle and even deny the role of the working class as the driving force of social and socio-economic development in modern conditions (theories of “deproletarianization”, “new middle class”, “integration”, etc.), real facts indicate the opposite : scientific and technological progress contributes to the growth of the working class, increasing its role as the main productive and socio-political force.

After World War II, the struggle of the working class in developed capitalist countries for their vital interests reached an unprecedented scale: from 1946 to 1966, 309.8 thousand strikes occurred. The effectiveness of the strike struggle has increased; one of the factors contributing to this is the achievements of socialist countries. Real wages of industrial workers from 1950 to 1971 increased in the USA by 45.5%, in Great Britain by 66.7%, in France by 145%, in Italy by 133.5%, in Germany and Japan, where wages ended war fell to an extremely low level, 3 and 3.2 times respectively. The increase in the purchasing power of workers as a result of successful economic struggle contributed to an increase in economic growth and employment levels. However, the socio-economic gains of the working class, including a number of reforms in the field of social security and medical care, did not compensate for the excessive intensity of work, nervous tension, and industrial injuries. The lot of a significant part of the working people (10-20%) remains to live in poverty or on the verge of poverty.

Since the late 60s. a new upsurge of the labor movement began in developed capitalist countries (the largest protests were “Red May” 1968 in France, “Hot Autumn” 1969 in Italy, strikes of the early 70s in Great Britain, “spring offensives” in Japan, etc.) . The average annual number of participants in strikes, including political ones, and other mass actions in the late 60s - early 70s. exceeded 40 million. The bourgeoisie responded with anti-worker laws, new attempts to limit the independence of trade unions, the right to strike, etc. The world economic crisis that began in 1974, the most acute in the post-war period, seriously affected the working class. Unemployment has risen sharply again; in the spring of 1975 in the USA the number of registered unemployed exceeded 8 million (rising from the usual 3-5% of the labor force to 9%), in Western Europe - 4 million (4-5% of the labor force), in Japan - 1.3 million The crisis arose in conditions of rampant inflation and rising prices; the growth of real wages in most capitalist countries has stalled, and in some countries it has decreased (in the USA in 1974 - by 5%). The desire of big capital to shift the costs of the crisis onto the working people met with decisive resistance from the working class. Left forces intensified the struggle in defense of the social and political rights of workers, for an independent labor policy, and against the neo-fascist threat. The development of this struggle was favored by the process of international detente, which began with the foreign policy initiatives of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. The labor and democratic movement of Western Europe achieved in the mid-70s. a number of major successes: fascist regimes were overthrown in Portugal and Greece, the positions of leftist forces in Italy, France and some other countries were strengthened.

Shifts in the composition, position and psychology of the working class are reflected in the development of its political and professional organization, in the nature of its demands and forms of struggle. Fundamental issues of social life are increasingly coming to the center of the militant actions of the proletariat: changes in economic policy, deep democratic transformations. The political role of trade unions is growing (65 million members in the early 70s), although it manifests itself in different countries in different ways, and not necessarily in accordance with the level of organization of employees (the level of organization in France is 20-25%, in USA - 25%, in Japan - 35%, in Germany - 36%, in Great Britain - 43%, in Italy - about 50%, in Sweden - 75%). Among workers of different orientations - communists, socialists, social democrats, Catholics - the desire for joint action is increasing. The ground for the union of manual and mental workers in the anti-monopoly struggle is expanding. Under these conditions, the call of the communists for the unity of action of all groups of the working class on a national and international scale, for the creation of a broad democratic coalition based on the alliance of the working class with other sections of the working people finds an increasing response and, despite obstacles and difficulties, is being implemented.

In developing countries, the industrial working class grew rapidly after World War II from the 1960s. they slowed down. With a total population of about 30 million, industrial workers make up 20-25% of the amateur population in the most developed countries of Latin America, about 5-6% in the countries of South Asia and North Africa. The number of the factory proletariat has reached 6 million in Latin America, and 8-9 million in the developing countries of Asia. This core of the working class is surrounded by a huge mass of semi-proletarian and pre-proletarian elements of the city and countryside. The size of the entire army of hired labor in developing countries exceeded 200 million (in the early 50s - 140 million); Of these, approximately half are employed in agriculture, about 55 million in industrial sectors (including handicrafts and handicrafts) and 65-70 million in trade and services. The specific features of the structure and position of the working class in developing countries include: 1) the presence of a large layer of plantation workers (about 15 million), who constitute the most concentrated, organized and militant part of the rural proletariat. 2) The predominance of light industry workers among the factory proletariat, as well as a relatively large number of miners, oil workers, and transport workers. 3) The small number of personnel, hereditary proletariat, the large scale of otkhodnichestvo (especially in Africa, where there are about 5 million migrating workers). 4) Low level of concentration of the industrial working class, a large proportion of handicraft and manufacturing workers (up to 40-50% in the manufacturing industry) employed in small and minute workshops or working at home (although certain industries and enterprises, most often controlled by foreign monopolies, characterized by a high degree of labor concentration). 5) The predominance of unskilled or low-skilled labor, which is associated, in particular, with the low educational level of the population. 6) An excessively large share of hired labor in the sphere of trade and services (one of the manifestations of hidden overpopulation in cities). 7) A huge number of unemployed (about 35-40 million) is a consequence of agricultural overpopulation and the limited pace of industrialization. 8) Extremely low level of wages, but at the same time maintaining a strong gap between the lowest and highest rates due to the lack of qualified labor. 9) Preservation of semi-feudal and specifically local forms of dependence (mediation, debt bondage, labor contracting, etc.) etc.), which coexist alongside the latest methods of capitalist exploitation. 10) The presence of deep national-ethnic and religious differences, which complicates the process of uniting the working class and the formation of its class consciousness.

The conditions of the struggle of the working class “in the third world” also have significant features. Its role as an anti-imperialist force is constantly growing. This also brought important social gains to the proletariat: legal restrictions on working hours, regulation of working conditions, etc. But labor legislation does not cover a number of essential aspects of labor relations and, moreover, is often violated. The financial situation of the bulk of the working class in most developing countries has changed little.

The organization of the working class in the “Third World” (about 40 million trade union members in the early 70s) and the scope of its actions (15-20 million strike participants per year) are generally growing. However, the labor movement faces enormous difficulties here. These difficulties are especially great in countries with reactionary, pro-imperialist regimes. Difficult tasks face the working class of those developing countries that have a significant capitalist sector, but take a generally anti-imperialist position. Conditions are more favorable for the working class in countries with a socialist orientation, although even here they are not the same. There are also great differences in the level of maturity of the working class. In tropical Africa there are no independent workers' parties; trade unions are predominantly at the top and are partially integrated into the party-state system. The level of political maturity of the vanguard of the working class in Asia is higher; Its communist vanguard is primarily hit by the blows of reaction (the bloody defeat of the Communist Party and trade unions in Indonesia in 1965-66). The role of the Latin American working class in leading the national liberation struggle is very significant. Industrial workers were the main support of the Popular Unity government in Chile from 1970-73. Despite the temporary defeat of the democratic forces in Chile, where after the military-fascist coup in September 1973, brutal terror fell primarily on the working class, and the intensification of repression in some other countries of the continent, the economic and political struggle of the Latin American proletariat is becoming increasingly widespread.

The international working class is a huge and growing force. In the early 70s. the total number of workers and employees worldwide exceeded 700 million; most of them belong to the working class. More than 250 million people belong to trade unions. With all the diversity of conditions and specific tasks facing workers in various countries and groups of countries, the international working class is united by a community of fundamental class interests. The international character of the struggle of the working class requires its maximum unity, the effective solidarity of the workers of each country with the struggle of their class brothers in other countries. The brightest manifestations of proletarian internationalism, which have marked the history of the labor movement in modern times, are the movement in defense of Soviet Russia during the Civil War and military intervention, international assistance to Spanish anti-fascists in 1936-39, the Resistance movement during the 2nd World War, speeches in defense revolutionary Cuba, international support for the liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people, the global movement of solidarity with the working people of Chile.

The most important phenomenon in the social life of post-reform Russia was the formation and growth of a new class - the proletariat.

Even during the reform of 1861, at least 4 million peasants were deprived of land. Subsequently, the number of horseless households, families deprived of their own equipment and completely abandoned the farm grew steadily. An artificial agrarian overpopulation was created. Millions of peasants were forced to leave the village in search of work.

In part, they were absorbed into capitalized agriculture as farm laborers. In the 80s of the XIX century. in European Russia there were at least 3.5 million agricultural workers. But in most cases, the labor reserves accumulated as a result of the proletarianization of the countryside were channeled into industry. The proletariat also included a significant part of the workers of the pre-reform period, bankrupt artisans, artisans and people from the urban petty bourgeoisie.

At the end of the 19th century. V.I. Lenin, based on a detailed analysis of a number of sources, came to the conclusion that a total of at least 22 million people should be classified as the proletarian strata of the population of Russia (without Finland), of which the actual hired workers employed in agriculture, factory work , mining, railway transport, construction and forestry, as well as those employed at home, amount to about 10 million people.

The formation of the industrial proletariat in Russia took place in an environment of rapid development of machine industry. In this regard, the concentration of workers in large and major enterprises in Russia was higher than in a number of old capitalist countries in Europe. By 1890, three-quarters of all workers employed in the manufacturing and mining industries of Russia were concentrated in enterprises with 100 or more workers, and almost half in enterprises with 500 or more workers. In the mining industry, the largest enterprises (with more than 1,000 workers) accounted for 10% of all industrial enterprises in Russia, but concentrated 46% of the total number of workers.

The completion of the transition from manufacture to factory was thus a decisive milestone in the formation of the proletariat. The old manufacturing worker, closely associated with small property, was replaced by a hereditary proletarian, for whom the only source of existence was the sale of labor power. In the metalworking and engineering industries already in the 80s. the absolute majority of workers were proletarians, often still classified as peasants only by class. However, this process was delayed by the preservation of remnants of serfdom. A characteristic feature of Russia's capitalist development - the rapid growth of factory centers located in rural areas, closer to sources of cheap labor - also made it difficult for even career workers to break ties with the land (primarily in industries such as textiles and processing of agricultural raw materials). But this same phenomenon also had another side: it led to a close rapprochement between the peasant masses and the proletariat.

The formation of the industrial proletariat took place as an all-Russian process. At the same time, the proletariat of Ukraine was formed from both the Ukrainian and Russian populations; The percentage of Russian workers in the ranks of the proletariat of the Baltic states, Belarus, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia was also significant. In this way, an objective basis was created and strengthened for the unity of workers of different nationalities and the development among them of the ideas of proletarian solidarity.

The intertwining of economic and political oppression made the situation of the worker in Russia especially difficult. There were no legal restrictions on the working day until the workers forced tsarism to do so through their struggle in the 90s. In the 60-80s, the working day was measured, as a rule, by 12-14 hours of hard work, and in many cases exceeded 14 hours. In the Siberian gold mines and on the plantations of sugar factories, it lasted “from dawn to dusk.” Women and children worked as much as men. The real earnings of workers were significantly less than nominal. Entrepreneurs forced people to buy food in a factory store at extortionate prices, exacted high fees for space in cramped and dirty barracks, and levied fines that sometimes reached half of their earnings. Representatives of the tsarist administration regarded any manifestation of worker protest against unbearable working and living conditions as a “rebellion” and “disorder,” always taking the side of the capitalists.