Lensky shooting

In 1910, the Lena Gold Industrial Partnership, co-owned by Vladimir Alexandrovich Ratkov-Rozhnov , a St. Petersburg entrepreneur and the mayor, and his son, the leader of the nobility, Ananias Vladimirovich, acquired the Andreevskiy mine.

At the time of the strike, 66% of the shares of the Lensk Gold-and-Industrial Partnership (“Lenzoto”) belonged to the company Lena Goldfields ^[1] . The company was incorporated in London . Shares of the company were traded in London, Paris and St. Petersburg . 70% of the shares of Lena Goldfields, or about 46% of the shares of Lenzoto, were in the hands of Russian industrialists united in a committee of Russian company depositors. A 30% stake in Lena Goldfields, or about 20% ^[1] of Lenzoto shares, was in the hands of British businessmen. Approximately 30% of Lenzoto shares were owned by the Ginzburg and their associates.

Extractive Company Management

Despite the fact that most of the Lenzoto shares were in the hands of Lena Goldfields, Lenzoto represented by Ginzburg was directly managed by the Lena mines . The board of the partnership, which was in force at the time of the strike, was elected in June 1909 ^[2] :

• Managing Director - Baron Alfred Goratsievich Gunzburg ;
• Directors of the Board - M.Ye. Meyer and G.S. Shamnaner;
• The members of the audit commission are V.V. Vek, G. B. Sliozberg , L. F. Grauman , V. 3. Friedland and R. I. Ebenau;
• Candidates for board members — V. M. Lipin, B. F. Juncker, and A. V. Guvelyaken;
• The mine manager is I.N. Belozerov.

Thus, by 1912 several influential groups of shareholders were formed, interested in controlling the largest Russian gold mining company. On the one hand, there was a conflict of interests between Russian and British business on the board of the parent company Lena Goldfields, on the other - representatives of the management company (and former owners) Lenzoto (led by Baron Gunzburg) tried to prevent de facto control of the mines from Board "Lena Goldfields" ^[1] .

Salary

In general, wages allowed annually recruiting key workers in quantities higher than necessary. The Ministry of the Interior was helping to recruit new workers to Ginsburg. The recruitment went on almost the entire territory of the empire. In 1911, about 40% of workers were recruited in the European part of Russia. The employee who signed the contract received 135 rubles as an advance payment ^[3] (the semi-annual salary of a worker in Moscow) and was sent to the mines under the supervision of the police.

From Gunzburg’s letter to the chief commander I.N. Belozerov: “... Now we are positively flooded with offers coming from different places, especially from the Polish region and from Odessa, but there are also from other cities ... Taking advantage of the assistance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs seems to us more than desirable and here are the reasons for this: 1. Since hiring a mine is a true benefit for a certain part of the population, it is possible to take advantage of this fact in order to lower the payment, against our existing one. And the reduced wages seem like something like an Eldorado for hungry people. In any case, we reported the police a fee of 30% below the existing one. 2. We do not believe that there is any risk in finding an extra people. With an excess of workers, it will be easier for you to make stricter requirements for workers, again, the presence of excess people in the taiga can help lower wages, what goal should all measures and pursue ...

The salary of the miners was 30–45 rubles per month ^[4] , that is, it was about twice as high as the workers in Moscow and St. Petersburg ^[5] , and ten to twenty times higher than the pecuniary incomes of the peasantry. However, unforeseen employment contract, female labor ^[6] (as well as teenage labor ^[7] ) was paid low (from 84 kopecks to 1.13 rubles per day), and in a number of proven cases it was not paid at all.

In addition, until 1912, overtime prospecting for gold nuggets was permitted. These works were not paid by time, the nuggets found were surrendered to the administration at the approved gold rates. In the bench "Lenzoto" per gram of native gold gave 84 pennies. In the shops of private dealers - from one to 1.13 rubles per gram ^[8] . In case of success, a worker for the year of such work could save up to a thousand or more rubles. Immediately before the strike, the prospecting work was banned, and, in addition, the administration took additional measures to restrict the ability to search for nuggets in the workplace.

Working hours duration

According to the employment contract signed by each worker, and according to the official schedule (approved by the Ministry of Trade and Industry), the working day during the period from April 1 to October 1 was 11 hours 30 minutes a day, and from October 1 to April 1 - 11 hours at single shift work. When two-shift work - 10 hours. If necessary, the manager could assign three shifts of workers for 8 hours. When working in one shift, the working day began at 5 am; from 7 to 8 o'clock - the first break; from 12 to 14 - the second break; at 19 hours 30 minutes (in winter time at 19 hours) - end of work.

In reality, the working day could last up to 16 hours, because after work the workers were allowed to dig for nuggets.

Labor Conditions

Gold mining took place mainly in the mines in permafrost conditions. Glacier had to warm fires, and the melt water to continuously pump out. The mechanization of production, despite significant investment, was inadequate, many work had to be done manually. Descend into the 20-60 meter mines accounted for the vertical icy stairs. Workers worked knee-deep in water. After the shift, the workers, in a watery robe, had to walk several miles to the barracks in the bitter cold, which often led to illness and death. Workers were regularly exposed to the dangers of collapses, received bruises and fractures ^[9] . According to the workers of the “Rocky” mine, the mine and the stairs were poorly lit due to the manager’s refusal to issue the necessary number of candles. ^[10] According to F. Kudryavtsev, in 1911, 896 accidents were reported with 5442 workers ^[11] . There was an acute shortage of doctors and places in hospitals. One of the workers was able to get to the hospital only a day before his death ^[10] as the doctor had previously refused to recognize him as sick. There were 2,500 workers per doctor, not counting their family members. The government and public commission of the State Duma subsequently recognized the medical care of workers as unsatisfactory.

Living Conditions

The workers of the Lenzoto barracks were overcrowded, there were not enough working places. Part of the workers were forced to rent private apartments for living. To pay for private apartments took up half the salary. In addition, as the commission subsequently established, only about 10% of the barracks met the minimum requirements for residential premises.

A member of the Kerensky Commission, A. Tyushchevsky wrote: “Comrades, we have nothing to do here, we have only one thing left: advise the workers to set fire to these rotten, stinky buildings and run out of this hell where their eyes are.”

Taking advantage of the patronage of the Irkutsk and Bodaibo authorities, the administration of Lenzoto monopolized trade and transport in the region, forcing workers to buy food only in benches owned by Lenzoto and move only on the company's transport. Part of the payment was issued in the form of coupons in the company's shops, which was legally prohibited in the Russian Empire. The nominal of coupons was big enough, and there was no possibility to exchange coupons. Workers were forced to buy unwanted goods in order to buy the coupons completely.

The position of women and adolescents

Under the contract of employment, it was forbidden to bring wives and children into the mines. The worker could bring the family only with the permission of the manager, thus, initially becoming dependent on the will of the administration. There were a lot of women in the mines (up to 50% of the number of men). Being dependent on the administration, women were often forced to work against their will, for low wages, or without pay. Often there were cases of sexual harassment of women by the administration ^[6] .

By the end of 1911, the contradictions between the main shareholders of Lenzoto sharpened. At the stock exchange was a continuous struggle between the "bears" and "bulls . " The press repeatedly reported on mass unrest and strikes in the Lena goldfields, but the market, accustomed to provocations against this company, practically did not react to the media.

At the same time, discontent of the workers was growing on the mines themselves. The deteriorating working conditions and the fact that workers were prohibited from earning extra money on native gold created conditions for a strike.

Reason and reason

The “meat story” at the Andreyevsky mine, recounted in the participants' memoirs in a variety of versions, served as a direct reason for the strike:

• the mine worker (sometimes called specific names) was given rotten meat;
• the workers inspectorate found a horse's leg in a cooking pot;
• a woman (the wife of one of the workers, or one of the "mothers ^{[comm. 1]} ) bought a piece of meat in the shop that resembles a horse's sexual organ.

Versions in the sources are sometimes partially combined, but agree on one thing, the workers received unfit meat.

The strike began spontaneously on February 29 ( March 13 ) at the Andreevsk mine, but then workers from other gold mines joined it. By mid-March, the number of strikers exceeded 6 thousand people.

In addition to the harsh climatic conditions and the 11-hour working day with one day off, a low wage was set , which was partially issued as coupons to store shops, where the quality of products was extremely low with relatively high prices. In addition, from the salary, fines for many violations were withheld, and there was practically no safety precautions: for every thousand people, there were over seven hundred traumatic incidents per year.

Worker requirements

On March 3, 1912, the following requirements for the administration of the mines were recorded by the protocol of the workers ’meeting ^[12] :

1. To improve the living conditions of the workers ( idle - one room for two, for a family one room ).
2. Improve the quality of food.
3. Increase the salary by 30%.
4. Forbid dismissal in winter. Dismissed in the summer, a free ticket to Zhigalovo should be issued.
5. Set an 8-hour working day. On the holidays - 7-hour. On Sundays and the Great Seasons - to go to work only at the request of employees, to work on these days for no more than 6 hours, to finish work no later than 1 pm and take into account the work on these days for a day and a half.
6. Cancel fines.
7. Do not force women to work.
8. Workers should not apply to “you”, but to “you”.
9. Dismiss the 25 employees of the administration of the mines (according to the list of workers).

In total, the workers put forward 18 requirements and 4 guarantees ( See the full list of requirements )

Shooting

Telegram of the Director of the Beletsky Police Department to the Chief of the Irkutsk Provincial Gendarme Office of March 30, 1912: “Offer directly to the captain Treschenkov to certainly eliminate the strike committee ...” .

On April 3 (16), 1912, the main leaders of the strike (including T. M. Solomin ) were arrested , and on April 4 (17), 1912, more than two thousand workers of the Lena gold mines marched in protest against the arrest of the strike committee members. The march was peaceful, but by order of the gendarme’s captain Treshchenkov, the soldiers opened fire on the workers.

Estimates of the number of victims

Data on the number of victims of the shooting in the sources vary. According to the Soviet history ^[13] , recorded in almost all encyclopedias and reference books, 270 people were killed and 250 were injured during the tragic events.

Other data:

The next day after the tragedy, the Russkoye Slovo newspaper , citing the “Advisory Bureau of Irkutsk Attorneys at Law”, reported 150 dead and more than 250 wounded ^[2] .

In the book "Lena mines" ^[14] , published in 1937 in the series "History of plants", contains contradictory data - from 150 dead and 100 wounded ^{[comm. 2]} , up to 270 killed and 250 wounded with reference to the social-democratic newspaper “Zvezda”. Meanwhile, according to publications in the Zvezda newspaper itself, dated April 8, 1912 ^{[comm. 3]} , 170 people were killed and 196 were wounded ^[2] . In the Special Journals of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire it is reported: “during the sad event of April 4, 1912, when from the shots sent to the crowd, the military unit designed to assist the civil authority suffered 372 people, of whom 170 died” ^[15] . In the final documents of the two commissions that investigated the Lensky shooting, there is no data on the number of dead, but it refers to taking evidence from the wounded in the amount of 202 people.

Lena events were discussed in the State Duma. The Minister of the Interior Makarov, who spoke at the Duma meeting, said: “So it was, it will be this way!”. As Trotsky writes, "to the applause of the right-wing deputies." ^[sixteen]

Two commissions were created to investigate the tragic events. One was a government under the leadership of Senator S. S. Manukhin , the other was a public one created by the State Duma, which was headed by lawyer A. F. Kerensky , who was little-known at the time, sympathizing with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

On May 19, the Manukhin Commission simultaneously with the Kerensky Commission went to the scene of events. By rail, both commissions arrived in Irkutsk on May 25, 1912 . On July 18, 1912, Manukhin orders the prosecutor of the Irkutsk District Court to open a lawsuit against the main culprit of the massacre, the captain Treschenkov, who gave the order to open fire.

Kerensky recalled the work in the commission ^[2] : “The situation in the gold mines was awkward. The government commission of Senator Manukhina met in the same building, and our headquarters was located on the same street in the house opposite. Both commissions called witnesses and arranged cross-examinations, both recorded the testimony of the Lenzoloto employees and prepared reports. Senator Manukhin sent his report in encrypted form to the Minister and the Tsar, and we sent our telegraph to the Duma and the press. Needless to say, the mining administration was very much affected by our invasion, but neither the senator nor the local authorities interfered with our work. On the contrary, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia Knyazev was sympathetic to our work, and the Irkutsk governor Bantysh ^[17] and his official for special assignments A. Malykh provided us with considerable help. ”

For involvement in a criminal act, the captain Treschenkov was dismissed from service in the gendarmerie corps, demoted to the ranks and enlisted in the foot militia of the St. Petersburg gubernia . With the beginning of the First World War in 1914 , after his insistent requests, he was at the Highest permission allowed to join the army in the field. He served in the 257th Evpatoria Infantry Regiment. “In the battle with the Austro-Germans, on May 15, 1915, at the village of Paclo, he was killed by an enemy rifle bullet in the forehead, while he led his battalion to the attack, following its lead. Buried in the cemetery in the village. Podzyach.

Until 1917

Despite the shooting of workers, the strike in the mines continued until August 12 (25) , after which over 80% of the workers left the mines. Including: working men - 4738 people, women - 2109, children - 1993 ^[18] . In their place were hired new workers. The share of Lena Goldfields Co., Ltd was reduced from 66% to 17%. The owners of the mines as a result of the strike suffered losses amounting to about 6 million rubles ^{[comm. 4]} . In connection with the tragic Lena events, the Ministry of Finance refused to finance the construction of the urgently needed Irkutsk - Zhigalovo - Bodaibo road for the mines.

The massacre of workers' peaceful procession caused strikes and rallies throughout the country, in which about 300 thousand people participated ^[19] .

J. Stalin in the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda of April 19, 1912 wrote: “Everything has an end — the end has come and the country's patience. Lena shots broke the ice of silence, and - the river of the national movement started moving. I moved! .. Everything that was evil and destructive in the modern mode, everything that hurt long-suffering Russia, all gathered in one fact, in the events on Lena "

Soviet period

In 1925 , using the decree on concessions ^[20] , the company Lena Goldfields again obtained the right to work in Siberian (including Lenskie) gold deposits for a period of 30 years. The companies were also transferred to: Revdinsky, Byssradsky, Seversky metallurgical plants, Degtyarsky, Zyuzelsky, Egorshinsky coal mines. Given that the share of Soviet power was only 7%, and the share of Lena Goldfields - 93% ^{[21] [22]} . In 1929, the company was forced to cease operations. In 1930, arbitration recognized the claim of the Lena Goldfields company to the Soviet government in the amount of US $ 65 million. In 1968, the Soviet government recognized the claim.

On May 28, 1996 , the newspaper Vostochno-Sibirskaya Pravda published an article entitled “Two Lena Shots” in which, citing case No. 7912 from the archive of the FSB in the Irkutsk Region, stated that in 1938, in the city of Bodaibo , Troika shot 948 workers of the Lena mines ^[23] . The events described in the article do not find confirmation in historical sources, references to the source of the article and case No. 7912 are not established, which does not allow to judge the reliability of the information.

It is still a misconception in the Western press that V. I. Ulyanov began to use the pseudonym Lenin after the Lena events. In fact, the pseudonym "N. Lenin " appeared long before these events - at the end of 1901 . ^{[24] [25]}

In connection with the stock market speculations of the Lenzoto partnership in Russia, the names of two businessmen became widely known: the stock exchange businessman Zakharia Zhdanov, who became a millionaire playing on raising shares, and the banker A. N. Trapeznikov, who played the same Lena shares, from - for which he went broke and killed himself.

For more than 160 years of existence of the Lena mines, about 1,300 tons of gold were mined ^[26] .

100 years after the execution, the state of the Lena mines again became unattractive for the life of the miners ^[27] . Therefore, in recent years, despite the growth in gold mining in the region, a steady decline in the region’s population has persisted ^[28] .

• "Sullen River" - a novel by Vyacheslav Shishkov (described the strike, similar to the Lena events of 1912)
• “Fate” (Part Two “Before the Dawn”) - the trilogy of Nikolai Yakutsk
• “By order of the company” - a play by P.I. Golikov. In 1923, the play was staged in the Krasnoyarsk Drama Theater. A. S. Pushkin .
• "On the Lena River" - the story of Mary Postholeskaya

• A. Nevsky. Lena events and their causes. SPb. 1912
• Bukhina V., Grekulov E. Lena mines. Collection of documents. - M. , 1937. - 563 p. - (History of plants).
• Mungalov N. N. The Lena goldfields (1846–1920). Historical essay .. - Bodaibo. Irkutsk .: Reprocenter A1, Ltd., 2006. - 160 p.
• Sokolov V.N. Lensky shooting: According to the book “Events on the Lena in documents. M .: Partisdat, 1932 ". - Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk region publishing house, 1938. - 88 p.
• Michael Melancon. The Lena Goldfields Massacre and the Crisis of the Late Tsarist State. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2006
• Those who fell on Lena are forever alive in our memory. 350 shot on Lena - the fiery milestone of the revolution. How it was. By the eleventh anniversary of the execution of Lensky (based on materials of an active participant) // “Soviet Siberia”. No. 82 (1029). April 17, 1923. Novo-Nikolaevsk
• Lensky shooting / / "Soviet Siberia." No. 80 (1322). April 8, 1924. Novo-Nikolaevsk
• Today is 15 years from the date of Lensky execution // Soviet Siberia. Number 88. April 12, 1927. Novosibirsk.
• Request for Lena events. On the Lena mines // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 80. April 11, 1912. Tyumen.
• Request for Lena events. To Lensky events. In the board of the Lensk partnership // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 81. April 12, 1912. Tyumen.
• The State Duma. Evening meeting. The answer to the request for Lena events. To Lensky events. Management "Lena" // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 82. April 13, 1912. Tyumen.
• The State Duma. Evening meeting on April 11. Response to a request for Lena events // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 83. April 14, 1912. Tyumen.
• How to grow Lena shares. The role of the board of "Lena" // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 84. April 15, 1912. Tyumen.
• Elimination of Lena events. Gold fever. How they lived in the Lena goldfields // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 87. April 19, 1912. Tyumen.
• The State Duma. Evening meeting. Criticism of the explanations of the government on Lena request. Nationalists on the Lena request // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 88. April 20, 1912. Tyumen.
• On the Lena mines. Donations in favor of the Lena workers. English public opinion about "Lena". Meeting protest. “Exchange speculation” // Siberian trade newspaper. No. 89. April 21, 1912. Tyumen.
• Legal assistance to victims // Siberian Trade Gazette. No. 91. April 25, 1912. Tyumen.
• R. B. Day. Leon Trotsky and the policy of economic isolation = Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation. ed. A. A. Belykh; per. from English A.V. Belykh. - M .: Delo, 2013. - 469, [1] p. - (Economic history in the past and present / Russian Acad. National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation). - 1000 copies - ISBN 978-5-7749-0766-3 .

Comments

Sources

• Забастовка на Ленских приисках в 1912 году (недоступная ссылка)
• Документы о ленских событиях 1912 г.
• Архив документальных фотоснимков 1912 г. по теме «Ленский расстрел» (недоступная ссылка) // в книге Р. Берестенёва «Иркутская земля: Яркий почерк светописцев. Фотообразы времени» (в формате PDF)
• Жирнов Евгений. Золотые происки // Коммерсантъ деньги. — 25.02.2008. — № 7(662) .
• Chronos. Ленский расстрел
• «Из искры возгорится пламя…» (К 100-летию Ленского расстрела) (недоступная ссылка)