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192 м. MiSHKiNSKYvolia" in November 1880, and the same idea was expressed by others.Yet the workers did have importance, partly because of their continuingconnections with the land, which could be used to transmit revolutionaryideas to the peasantry. In the 1870s, several attempts toorganize urban workers were made by the intelligentsia or by theworkers themselves. Efforts at labor organization were more visibleand more comprehensive in the second half of the decade, when theyassumed two forms: societies similar to trade unions, and sectionsaffiliated with general revolutionary organizations. 5The Southern-Russian Workers' Union 6(luzhno-russkii rabochiisoiuz) is of special interest. 7 Franco Venturi, author of the standardwork on the history of populism in Russia, rightly describes it as "thegreatest venture in working class organization in South Russia duringthe seventies." 8Probably the statement can equitably be extended toinclude, chronologically, the 1880s and, geographically, other regionsof the Russian Empire (apparently excepting the Kingdom of Poland).4Cf. Volk, Revoliutsionnoe narodnichestvo, 2: 349 (doc. 86).5Venturi, Roots of Revolution, pp. 507-557.6This English version of the union's name is the one I favor over Venturi's"Workers' Union of South Russia."7The first history of the union, interspersed with personal memoirs, was by one ofits founders, Elizaveta Koval'skaia (née Solentsova). It was published in V. V.Maksakov and V. I. Nevskii, eds., Iuzhnorusskie rabochie soiuzy (Moscow, 1924).Two years later it was republished separately in essentially the same form:E. Koval'skaia, Iuzhnorusskie rabochie soiuzy (Moscow, 1926). Hereafter thesepublications will be cited as Koval'skaia 1924 and 1926, respectively.A general history of the working class movement in the Ukraine was publishedby M. Balabanov, К istorii rabochego dvizheniia na Ukraine (Kiev, 1925). Noother studies of the union have been published in the Soviet Union. Soviethistoriographers tend to downgrade the union's importance, mainly because of itsnon-proletarian point of view, and to ignore the role of the nationalities problem inits history and development. See V. S. Zhuchenko, Sotsial'no-ekonomichnaprohrama revoliutsiinoho narodnytstva na Ukraini (Kiev, 1969), p. 143; and A. K.Voloshenko, Narysy z istorii suspil'no-politychnoho rukhu na Ukraini (Kiev,1974), pp. 90-100.A concise outline of the history of the union can be found in Venturi, Roots ofRevolution, pp. 518-24. Unfortunately, Koval'skaia's name was omitted in theindex to the English edition, but not in the original Italian one. Some factual errorsin that work will be noted below.8Venturi, Roots of Revolution, p. 523. See also V. Nevskii, Ot "Zemli i voli" кgrupe "Osvobozhdenie truda" (Moscow, 1930), pp. 177-78. For information aboutNarodnaia volia circles in Kiev, see the memoirs of A. Bychkov, "Délo o revoliutsionnykhkruzhakh 1879-1881 ν Kieve," in Letopis revoliutsii, 1924, no. 2,pp. 39-62, and no. 3, pp. 161-74; "Narodovol'cheskie organizatsii ν Kieve s oseni1880 g. po aprel 1883 g.," in Narodovol'tsy poslepervogo marta 1881 g., ed. Α. V.Iakimova-Dikovskaia (Moscow, 1928), p. 168.