Workers' strikes in Siberia at the beginning of a new revolutionary rise (June 1910 - April 1912)

The article points out that of all the diversity of labour movement strike was the most specific proletarian form ofstruggle. Growth of strike struggle of the Russian proletariat in the second half of 1910 was the main indicator of the beginning of a newlabour movement rise in the country after a three-year period of the political reaction from 1907 to the first half of 1910. Revival of theworkers' class activity in Russia in the second half of 1920 did not mean deep quantity and quality changes in the strike struggle. In thementioned year out of 78 thousand strikers only 6 thousand ones took part in political strikes, the rest took part in economic turns. As in theyears of reaction, strikes bore mainly self-defensive character, where most of them ended up in defeat. So, labour movement rise in 1910came very slowly. Especially it referred in the early months of the rise to workers from the remote places, in particular, from Siberia. Strikemovement here revealed the tendency to its growth only in 1911 when its scale and structure changed significantly. Thus, in 1911in Siberiathere took place 63 strikes with approximately 7377 workers participating, whereas the year before there were 52 strikes with 3800 workersparticipating. In the first quarter of 1912 (before shooting of workers in Lenskygold-mines) workers' struggle continued to grow. FromJanuary to April this year Siberian workers held 62 strikes in which participated around 6900 people.Unlike the central regions of the country, in Siberia the revival of the proletarian struggle in the early years of the rise was not followedby political turns of the local workers. Only at the beginning of 1912 here was seen the increase of strikes with mixed demands. Alongsidewith that strikes gained offensive character more and more. However, offensive turns became clearly dominant in Siberia only in the firstquarter of 1912, whereas in the central provinces it happened since the early 1911. Quantitative growth of strikes in Siberia in 1911 the early1912, the increase of offensive and successful strikes were closely connected with changes in the participants body of the strike struggle inthe period under review. If in 1910 in strike movement there dominated builders, with miners following up, in 1911 the early 1912 thesituation changed significantly. Miners were considerably ahead builders in the degree of participation in the movement. Alongside withthem during that period workers of processing industry began to participate in strikes more actively. In 1911, in particular, they held 19strikes (i.e. 2.4 times more than in 1910). The development of strike movement in Siberia during the first years of the rise became quite asignificant factor in the social life of the region. Together with the rise of the labour movement the social-democratic underground activated,which manifested in in its attempts to become a leading element in the strikes. In 1911-1912 social democrats led strikes in the mainworkshops in Chita (January, 1911), at the shipyard of the Kushnarevs' trading house in Verholensk district of the Irkutsk province (January1911), at Bekkera's brickyard in Krasnoyarsk (June 1911), in Lensk gold-mine (the early 1912). However, many turns in the early years ofthe period under review took place without the influence and leadership of social democrats. Thus, the analysis of the strike movement inSiberia at the beginning of the new revolutionary rise (June 1910 the early 1912) let us say that like in other regions of the country it did notspread broadly and grew gradually after hard years of political reaction. However, the tendency of the rise was significant in Siberian marginas well. The number of strikes and number of its participants grew, and qualitative changes were observed in strike movement. It becameespecially apparent at a later stage of the struggle from 1912 to 1914.

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