Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

STRIKE STATISTICS IN RUSSIA4012,863,000, or about 70 per cent; in 1906—852,000 out of atotal of 1,108,000, i.e., approximately 75 per cent; in 1907—517,000 out of a total of 740,000, or approximately 70 percent; in 1908—85,000 out of a total of 176,000, i.e., less thana half.*Consequently, the role of these six gubernias was greaterduring the three-year period 1905-07 than in the period beforeor after it. It is therefore clear that the big urban centres,including the capitals, displayed a considerably greaterenergy than all the other localities during these three years.The workers scattered in villages and in relatively smallindustrial centres and towns, comprising half of the totalnumber of workers, accounted for 40 per cent of the totalnumber of strikers in the decade 1895-1904, and for only25-30 per cent during the period 1905-07. Supplementing theconclusion we arrived at above, we may say that the bigcities had woken up, while the small towns and villageswere largely still asleep.As regards the countryside in general, i.e., as regardsthe factory workers living in villages, we have additionalstatistical data covering the number of strikes (but not thatof strikers) in towns and non-urban localities. Here are thefigures:Number of strikesTotal for the In cities In non-urban Totalten yearslocalities1895-1904 1,326 439 1,7651905 11,891 2,104 13,9951906 5,328 786 6,1141907 3,258 315 3,5731908 767 125 892In citing these data, the compilers of the official statisticspoint out that, according to the well-known investigationsof Mr. Pogozhev, 40 per cent of all the factories inRussia are located in towns, and 60 per cent in non-urbanlocalities. 144 Consequently, in the normal period (1895-1904), while the number of strikes in the towns was threetimes as high as in the rural districts, the number of strikes* In 1908, Baku Gubernia topped the list with 47,000 strikers.The last of the Mohicans of the mass political strike!