Republic of Labor

by Koenker, Diane P.

• ISBN13: 9780801443084
• ISBN10: 0801443083
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-10
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

The long decade from the October Revolution to 1930 was the beginning of a great experiment to create a socialist society. Throughout these years, socialist trade unions attempted to transform the Russian worker into a productive and enthusiastic participant in this new order. How did the workers themselves react to these efforts? To what extent were they and their culture transformed into the ideal forms proclaimed in the official ideology? In Republic of Labor, Diane P. Koenker illuminates the lived experience of Russia's printers, workers who differed from their comrades because of their skill and higher wages, but who shared the same challenges of economic hardship and dangerous conditions. Paying close attention to the links between work, politics, and the everyday, the author focuses on workers' efforts to define their place in socialist society. Gender issues are also emphasized, and here we see the persistence of a masculinist working-class culture counterposed to an official culture promoting gender equality. Through this engaging narrative, Koenker develops a highly original discourse about class in Soviet society that will interest all students of Russian history as well as those readers who wish to reinvigorate class as a historical and sociological tool of analysis.

Author Biography

Diane P. Koenker is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Editor of the Slavic Review

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction: Socialism and the Russian Working Class	1	(16)
PART I. CIVIL WAR AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE ONE-PARTY TRADE UNION, 1918--1922
The Printing Industry in the Era of Revolutionary Transformations	17	(28)
The Struggle for a Communist Printers' Union, 1918--1922	45	(32)
The Civil War and Working-Class Culture	77	(32)
PART II. THE ``GOLDEN YEARS'' OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY, 1922--1927
A New Form of Labor Relations	109	(34)
The Working People's Democracy	143	(32)
New Cultures of Class	175	(40)
PART III. THE TWISTING ROAD TO THE FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLAN, 1927--1930
The Industry without a Plan: Unemployment and Conflict in the First Five-Year Plan	215	(30)
The Twilight of the Socialist Trade Union	245	(26)
Class Formation or the Unmaking of the Working Class?	271	(28)
Soviet Workers and the Socialist Project: Epilogue and Conclusion	299	(18)
Selected Bibliography	317	(18)
Index	335