1. In 1917 the Ivanovo-Kineshma region consisted of the central and northeastern portions of Vladimir province and the southwestern corner of Kostroma province. This included the Kineshma and Iur'evets districts(uezdy) of Kostroma province as well as the following volosti of the Nerekhta district: Sereda, Maluevo, Nogino, Odelevo, Shirokoe, Berezniki, Pistsovo, Sorokhta, Ignat'evskoe, Il'insko-Vvodenskoe, Pies, Gorkino, Ostretsovo, Iakovlevskoe, Zolotinovka, and Dmitrievskoe. From Vladimir province it included: allof the Shuia district; Kibergino, Krapivnovo, Petrovo-Gordishchevo, Nel'sha, Kovarchino, Rumiantsev, Sakhtysh, and Ivashkovo volosti of Suzdal’ district; Bykovo, Miliukovo, Lezhnevo, Cherntsy, Voskresenskoe, Zimenski, Berezovik, and Khotima volosti of Korov district. The area is sometimes referred to as theIvanovo-Voznesensk region, after its principal city (now Ivanovo). Herein, Ivanovo-Kineshma will refer tothe region and lvanovo-Voznesensk to the city.

2. On the existence and importance of worker-activists and their distinction from the mass of industrialworkers, see Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, The February Revolution: Petrograd 1917 (Seattle: University of WashingtonPress, 1981 Google Scholar.

3. Rabochii klass Sovetskoi Rossii v pervyi god diktatury proletariata. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Moscow, 1964), p. 151. Of the more than 1 million of these who worked in the Central Industrial Region (see note 9 below), 60 percent were employed in the textile industry.

4. Trukan, G. A., Oktiabr’ v tsentral'noi Rossii (Moscow: Mysl, 1967), p. 217 Google Scholar.

5. The Central Industrial Region consisted of the following provinces: Moscow, Iaroslavl, Kaluga, Nizhnyi-Novgorod, Tula, Tver, Riazan as well as Vladimir and Kostroma. For organizational purposes the Moscow Oblast Bureau of the Bolshevik party employed a broader definition, including Voronezh, Orlov, Smolensk, and Tambov provinces.

6. Istoriia SSSR epoka sotsializma, ed. Iu. S. Kukushkin et al. (Moscow, 1985), p. 29; Trukan, Oktiabr'v tsentral'noi Rossii, p. 217.

7. For Soviet interpretations that stress the leading role of Moscow, see Trukan, , Oktiabr’ v tsentral'noiRossii, p. 217; Volobuev, P. V., Proletariat i burzhuazii Rossii v 1917 g. (Moscow: Mysl, 1964), p. 240 Google Scholar; Egorova, A. G., Profsoiuzy ifabzavkomy v bor'be zapobedu Oktiabria (mart-oktiabr’ 1917 goda) (Moscow: Profizdat, 1960, p. 168 Google Scholar; Gaponenko, L. S., Rabochii klass v 1917 godu (Moscow: Nauka, 1970, p. 438 Google Scholar.

8. Diane Koenker and William G. Rosenberg, “Skilled Workers and the Strike Movement in Revolutionary Russia,” Journal of Social History (Summer 1986), pp. 614–615.

9. On 1 January 1917, the Russian industrial labor force numbered 2, 093, 862 workers. Slightly more than one million worked in the Central Industrial Region, more than half in the textile industry. Nationally, various branches of the textile industry employed 694, 059 workers, or just over one-third of the total force. Between 73 percent and 83 percent of these textile workers were located in the provinces of the Central Industrial Region in 1917. The 300,000 Ivanovo-Kineshma textile strikers, therefore, were not only a significant proportion of the textile industry in the region and nationally, but also a notable part of the total industrial work force. To employ a different measure, the Russian textile industry counted just over seven million spindles in 1913. Of these 2, 056, 820 were located in Moscow province and 2, 411, 785 in the combined area of Vladimir and Kostroma provinces. Ivanovo-Voznesensk was itself commonly referred to as “the Russian Manchester,” and the Shuia uezd of Vladimir province in which it was located included Shuia, the second largest town in the region, as well as the important industrial villages of Kokhma and Teikovo. Rabochiiklass. Sbornik dokumentov, p. 151; Gaponenko, Rabochii klass v 1917, pp. 109, 114.

10. For the Petrograd and Moscow workers’ movements, see Smith, Steven A., Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Craft Consciousness, Class Consciousness: Petrograd 1917,” History Workshop 11 (Spring 1981): 33–56; Mandel, David, The Petrograd Workers and the Fall of the Old Regime: From the February Revolution to the JulyDays, 1917 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power: From the July Days to July 1918 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); Koenker, Diane, Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981 Google Scholar; G. Rosenberg, William, “The Democratization of Russia's Railroads in 1917,” American Historical Review 88 (1981), pp. 983–1008 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenberg and Koenker, “Skilled Workers and the Strike Movement,” pp. 605–629; idem, “TheLimits of Formal Protest: Worker Activism and Social Polarization in Petrograd and Moscow, March to October, 1917,” American Historical Review 92 (1987), pp. 296–326.

Semiskilled in this instance would include those who had learned functions applicable to this particular industry but not readily transferr able to other spheres, such as the operation of mechanized spindles and looms. The unskilled performed tasks requiring no particular training, such as wool cleaning. The skilledhad talents that could be readily converted to employment in other industries, for example, the mills’ mechanics and steam fitters.

11. See Glickman, Rose L., Russian Factory Women: Workplace and Society, 1880–1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984 Google Scholar, especially pp. 181–184. No women served in the leadership of the Ivanovo-Kineshma Union of Textile Workers in 1917. Indicative also is the experience of Vichuga (Kineshmauezd, Kostroma province), where the local soviet formed on 4 March 1917 included only sevenwomen in a total representation of fifty-seven. See Burdzhalov, E. N., Vtoraia Russkaia revoliutsiia. Moskva.Front. Periferiia (Moscow: Nauka, 1971, p. 184 Google Scholar.

12. TekstiVshchik, no. 17 (June 1920), p. 25; Frunze, M., “Ob obrazovanii novoi Ivanovo-Voznesenskoigubernii iz chastei Kostromsk. i Vladimirsk.,” in Sbornik statei i materialov po obrazovaniiIvanovo-Voznesenskoi gubernii. Vypusk 1 (Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1918), p. 5 Google Scholar.

The average textile factory in the Central Industrial Region employed 510 workers in 1917, and large enterprises were common. Even taking intervening closings into account, the industrial census of 31 August1918 counted three operating textile factories in Vladimir province with a work force exceeding 5, 000 foreach enterprise. An additional eight factories employed 2, 501 to 5, 000, sixteen employed 1, 001 to 2, 500, twenty employed 501 to 1, 000, and thirty-two, 201 to 500. In Kostroma province, the census reported onefactory that employed more than 5, 000, three in the 1, 001 to 2, 500 category, and four employing 201 to 500.Fabrichnozavodskaia promyshlennost'v period 1913–1918 gg. Vserossiiskaia perepis’ 1918 g. Vypusk 2 (Moscow, 1926), pp. 30–31.

13. On this point see Burdzhalov, Vtoraia Russkaia revolutsiia, pp. 180–182.

14. Examples would include Shuia and Kineshma as well as the industrial villages of Vichuga, Rodniki, Sereda, Pistsovo, Dulianino, Kovrov, Kameshki, Tyntsovo, and Kokhma. Vichuga, for example, employed 35,000 workers in eight textile enterprises. Burdzhalov, Vtoraia Russkaia revoliutsiia, p. 184. The exception was the town of Vladimir, about one-fifth the size of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, which did not possess a significant concentration of large-scale textile mills.

15. The tie of the unskilled factory worker to the land, a commonplace in Bolshevik pronouncements before and after the revolution, requires further study outside the scope of this paper. Given the more complete break made by women in general as they entered the labor force, a reexamination of this assumption is particularly in order for the textile industry. In her memoir, Valentina Ivanova Petrova, a semiskilled worker in Bogorodsk, notes that the work force consisted of those whose roots were in the local peasantry, but she herself doubts the importance of the tie, since in her opinion their living came from factory work and not thepeasant economy. Rabotnitsa na sotsialisticheskoi stroike. Sbornik avtobiografii rabotnits (Moscow, 1932), p. 47.

16. In early January 1917, for example, 1,500 weavers struck at the Volzhskaia Mill in Kineshmauezd, but 2,500 mechanics, spinners, and decorators continued to work. Not until the news of the February Revolution reached the plant were the remainder convinced to walk out, with skilled mechanics apparently the last to do so. Korolev, G. K., Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki v 1917 godu (iz vospominaniitekstil'shchikla) (Moscow, 1927), pp. 14–16 Google Scholar.

17. In October 1917, the Ivanovo-Kineshma Union of Textile Workers claimed 125, 000 members. ByJanuary 1918, it grew to 160, 000, or just more than half the number of textile strikers.

18. Laverychev, V. Ia., Soloveva, A. M., Boevoi pochin Rossiiskogo proletariate: K 100-letiiu Morozovskoistachki 1885 g. (Moscow, 1985)Google Scholar; Sokolov, V., “Stachka tkachei Ivanovo-Voznesenskoi manufakturyv 1895 g.,” Krasnyi arkhiv, 72 (1935), pp. 178–183 Google Scholar; G. Gard, William, “The Party and the Proletariat in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1905,” Russian History’ Histoire Russe 2, no. 2 (1975), pp. 101–123 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ekzempliarskii, P. M., Istoriia goroda Ivanovo, chast’ I (Ivanovo: Ivanovskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1958)Google Scholar; Pervyi sovetrabochikh deputatov: Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1905 (Moscow, 1985); Samoilov, F. N., “Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsiiav Ivanovo-Voznesenske,” in Pobeda Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii. Sbornik vospominanii (Moscow, 1958), pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

19. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 13, 20, 29. In Teikovo (Shuia uezd, Vladimirprovince), 3,600 of 5,537 textile workers were enrolled in the union on 7 March 1917. In the entire Ivanovo-Kineshma region, 100 union sections formed between March and July, claiming an exaggerated membershipof as much as 200, 000. Gaponenko, Rabochii klass v 1917, pp. 284–286.

20. Volubuev, P. V., Proletariat i burzhuazii v Rossii v 1917 g. (Moscow: Mysl, 1964)Google Scholar; C.Owen, Thomas, Capitalism and Politics in Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981 Google Scholar; Rieber, Alfred J., Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Siegelbaum, Louis H., The Politics of Industrial Mobilization in Russia, 1914–1917 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ruckman, Jo Ann, The Moscow Business Elite (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press 1984)Google Scholar; L. West, James, “The Rjabushinskij Circle: Russian Industrialists in Search of a Bourgeoisie, 1909–1914,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 32, Heft 3 (1984), pp. 358–377 Google Scholar; Muriel Joffe, “The Cotton Manufacturers In the Central Industrial Region, 1880s-1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1981).

21. On the preoccupation with Petrograd and Moscow, see note 10 above and Suny, Ronald Grigor, “Russian Labor and Its Historians in the West: A Report and Discussion of The Berkeley Conference onthe Social History of Russian Labor,” International Labor and Working Class History 22 (Fall 1982), pp. 39–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 47–51.

22. Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuazii, p. 50.

23. Trukan, Oktiabr’ v tsentral'noi Rossii, p. 23.

24. Volubuev, Proletariat i burzhuazii, pp. 70–71, 74.

25. See Professional'nye soiuzy rabochikh Rossii, 1905 g.-fevral’ 1917 g. Perechen’ organizatsii, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1985)1: 64–73, 138–143, 170–198.

26. Tekstil'nyi rabochii, no. 1 (5 September 1917), pp. 7–8.

27. Korolev, lvanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, p. 13.

28. Sbornik avtobiografii rabotnits, p. 45.

29. See note 16 above.

30. Materialy po istorii SSSR, torn III. Rabochii kontrol’ i natsionalizatsiia krupnoi promyshlennosti v Ivanovo-Voznesenskom gubernii (Moscow, 1956), pp. 25–26; Za vlast’ sovetov. Sbornik dokumentov ivospominanii (Ivanovo, 1967), pp. 64–66, 78.

31. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 20–23. Delegates represented 150, 000 workers, 90 percent of whom were employed in textile factories.

32. Materialy, pp. 23–25. Workers’ control refers to accounting and supervision rather than directmanagement.

33. Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 68–69.

34. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 24–25, 28. S. Klimokhin refers to the bureauas the Regional Organizational Bureau of Soviets in “ Ivanovo-Voznesenskaia guberniia v promyshlennom otnoshenii,” in Sbornik po obrazovanii Ivanovo-Voznesenskoi gubernii, p. 20. Korolev refers to the same body as the Provisional Union Bureau. See above and “Istoriia Ivanovo-Kineshemskago Oblastnago Professional'nago Soiuza Rabochii i Rabotnits Tekstil'noi Promyshlennosti,” in Sbornik po obrazovanii Ivanovo-Voznesonskoi Gubernii, p. 50.

35. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, p. 24; Za vlast’ sovetov, p. 77; The Russian Provisional Government: Documents, Volume II, ed. Robert Paul Browder and Alexander Kerensky (Stanford;Stanford University Press, 1961) 2: 718–720; Materialy, p. 48, fn. 1.

36. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 25–27; Klimokhin, “Ivanovo-Voznesenskaia guberniia,” p. 20; Materialy, p. 41.

37. Za vtast’ sovetov, pp. 88–89.

38. Sokolov, V. M., Fabrika imeni S. I. Blalsova (Ivanovo, 1961), pp. 33–34 Google Scholar; Materialy, pp. 31–32.

39. Za vlast’ sovetov, p. 156. Delegations attended from Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kineshma, Shuia, Rodniki, Iur'ev-Pol'skii, Kovrov, Kokhma, Teikovo, Iur'evets, Sereda, and Tyntsov.

40. Pravda, 29 October 1917, p. 3; Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 28–30. The first five are Bolsheviks. Kuznetsov chaired the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Soviet.

41. Ekzempliarskii, P. M., Istoriia goroda Ivanovo, chast’ 1 (Ivanovo: Ivanovskoe Knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1958), p. 347 Google Scholar; M. Frunze, “Ob obrazovanii Ivanovo-Voznesenskoi gubernii,” p. 5.

42. Materialy, pp. 34–36.

43. Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 156–157.

44. For example, Materialy, pp. 42–44, 46, 51–52, 59–60, 61; Sokolov, Fabrika Balasova, p. 35.

45. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 32–34.

46. Sbornik autobiografii rabotnits, pp. 47, 62.

47. Tekstil'nyi rabochii, no. 5 (20 December 1917): 7; V. Ia. Laverychev, “Sozdanie tsentral'nykhgosudarstvennykh organov upravleniia tekstil'noi promyshlennosti v 1918 g. (iz istorii Tsentrotekstilia),” in Iz istorii Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii, Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1957), p. 116.

48. Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuazii, pp. 68–86; Korolev, “Istoriia Soiuza Tekstil'noi Promyshlennosti,” p. 49.

49. Materialy, pp. 41–42, 44–45, 45–46, 48–50, 52, 63–64.

50. Za vlast’ sovetov, p. 157; Trukan, Oktiabr’ v tsentral'noi Rossii, p. 87; Pravda, 29 October 1917, p. 3; Rabochii klass v Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i na zashchite ee zavoevanie, 1917–1920 gg., torn I (Moscow, 1984), p. 87; Ekzempliarskii, Istoriia Ivanovo, 1: 348.

51. S. K. Klimokhin, Kratkaia istoriia stachki tekstil'shchikov Ivanovo-Kineshemskoi Promyshlennoi Oblasti (S 21-go oktiabria po 17-e noiabria 1917 g.) (Kineshma, 1918), pp. 1–2; Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, p. 34; Pravda, 29 October 1917, p. 3.

52. Pravda, 29 October 1917, p. 3. At the 4–6 April conference, reports of local delegates listed average monthly wage as between 20 rubles and 40 rubles, without specifying variations for skill. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstiV shchiki, pp. 22–23. Throughout the industry, adult women averaged 41.96 rublesa month in January 1917 and 105.67 in July. Tekstivshchik, no. 17 (June 1920), p. 6.

53. Tekstil'nyi robochii, no. 3 (26 October 1917), pp. 2–10. Some 83 delegates representing 312,000 workers attended, but the account specifies that the 26 sections represented did not include many outlying areas.

54. TsGAOR (Central State Archive of the October Revolution), fond 5, 457, opis’ 3, delo 1, list 9.

55. Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 158–160.

56. Trukan, Oktiabr’ v tsentral'noi Rossii, p. 215; Volobuev, Proletariat i burzhuqzii, p. 240.

57. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 37–38; Klimokhin, Istoriia stachki tekstil'shchikov, pp. 3–4. Members of the Central Strike Committee were P. P. Veselov, T. I. Skvortsov, S. G.Kotov, P. V. Polianov, V. P. Kuznetsov, I. A. Barabanov, A. la. Gusev, Baranov, Chernov. The latter twowere not Bolsheviks.

58. Materialy, pp. 64–66; Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 161–164; Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii nakanuneOktiabr'skogo vooruzhennogo vosstaniia (1–24 oktiabria 1917 g.) (Moscow, 1962), pp. 291–292; Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 39–43; Klimokhin, Istoriia stachki tekstil'shchikov, pp. 8–12.

59. Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 165–169. Union Secretary Klimokhin frequently handled communications of the Central Strike Committee, although he was not one of its nine members.

60. Ibid., pp. 172–174; Materialy, pp. 68–70; Profsoiuzy SSSR. Dokumenty i materialy, torn I (1905–1917 gg.) (Moscow, 1963), pp. 464–466.

61. Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 174–175.

62. Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, pp. 322–323; Profsoiuzy SSSR, pp. 467–468.

63. Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, p. 323.

64. Ibid., p. 327; Materialy, pp. 70–71; Za vlast’ sovetov, p. 176.

65. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, p. 48.

66. Za vlast’ sovetov, p. 180.

67. Lisetskii, A. M., Bol'sheviki vo glave massovykh stachek (Kishinev, 1974), pp. 129–130 Google Scholar.

68. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, p. 60.

69. Sotsial-Demokrat, 29 October 1917, p. 2; 3 November 1917, p. 1.

70. Tekstil'nyi rabochii, no. 4 (9 December 1917), p. 9.

71. Korolev, lvanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil’ shchiki, pp. 62–63.

72. Klimokhin, htoriia stachki tekstil'shchikov, pp. 40–41.

73. Sotsial-Demokrat, 23 November 1917, p. 3.

74. Korolev, lvanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 63–65; Klimokhin, Istoriia stachki tekstil'-shchikov, pp. 40–41; Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 310, 313–314.

75. Tekstil'nyi rabochii, no. 4 (9 December 1917), p. 4, and no. 5 (20 December 1917), pp. 2–3; Ivanovo-Voznesenskie bol'sheviki v period podgotovki i provedeniia Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii. Sbornik dokumentov (Ivanovo, 1947), p. 178; Material), pp. 88–89; Korolev, lvanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 64–66; Istoriia Ivanovo, ed. S. S. Deev et al. (Ivanovo, 1962) 2: 25–27.

76. After 1905 factory owners had exhibited a preference for hiring female workers who could be paidless and were considered more politically passive. They obviously retained their proclivity to differentiate wages by gender in the November 1917 negotiations. Available sources unfortunately do not make clear whether the demand for a uniform tarif was an ideologically motivated tactic by the workers’ representatives, the pragmatic result of the union's wage and cost-of-living studies, a reflection of the preferences of the tarifcommission itself, or an outgrowth of factory discussions.

77. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstii'shchiki, pp. 67–68.

78. Materialy, pp. 81–82, 84–86, 91–93; Za vlast’ sovetov, pp. 314–317.

79. Sbornik dekretov i postanovlenii po narodnomu khoziaistvu, vypusk I (25 oktiabria 1917 g.-25oktiabria 1918 g.) (Moscow, 1918), pp. 171–172.

80. Sbornik uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii raboshago i krest'ianskago pravitel'stva, no. 5 (16 December1917), pp. 73–74; no. 3 (8 December 1917), p. 38; no. 9 (24 December 1917), pp. 134–135, 136.

81. Uprochenie Sovetskoi vlasti v Moskve i Moskovskoi gubernii. Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow, 1958), pp. 170–171, 178, 179–181, 211; Natsionalizatsiia promyshtennosti v SSSR. Sbornik dokumentov imaterialov, 1917–1920 gg. (Moscow, 1954), pp. 93–95.

82. Tekstil'nyi rabochii, no. 5 (20 December 1917), pp. 9–10.

83. Korolev, Ivanovo-Kineshemskie tekstil'shchiki, pp. 67–70.