''Rabochaya Mysl'' (, ''Workers' Thought'') was a Russian social-democrat newspaper and bearer of the

Economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

current. Sixteen numbers were published in total. The first two numbers were released in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

in October and December 1897. In

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, the following nine issues were published, from 1898 to April 1901, followed by four other numbers released in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. The last number was published in December 1902, in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

. The most influential editor was Konstantin Tachtarev (1871–1925). Other collaborators were Apollinariya Yakubova (1869–1917), Nikolai Lochov (1872–1948), Vladimir Ivanshin (1869–1904) and Karl August Kok.

History

The founders of the newspaper were a group of

Kolpino Kolpino () is a administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg, municipal city in Kolpinsky District of the federal cities of Russia, federal city of Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia, located on the Izhora River (tributary of th ...

, an industrial suburb of Saint Petersburg, formed by the workers Jakov Andreev (1873–1927), the two Dulashev brothers, Efimov, Vlasov, Vetts, and by the employees Fel'dman, Vaneev and Ivanov. A group of workers from Obukhovo, a district of the capital, also joined the initiative. The workers of Kolpino had been formed politically at the school of some adherents of the

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

that resided there. After the newspaper's creation, they formed a circle called the ''Fight Organization'', which some Obukhovo workers also joined. Semenov, one of the latter, described a few years later the nature of the workers' organization: «The organization had to be purely manual, autonomous, independent of the

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

" because they believed that the emancipation of the workers should be the exclusive task of the workers themselves, and the interference of intellectuals could "pollute the purity of the workers' movement". Their propaganda and agitation did not touch on political but exclusively economic themes, simply because "we did not understand the political struggle and interpreted it in a trade-unionistic way". According to Semenov, they were unknowingly influenced from the so-called " legal Marxism" of

Peter Struve Peter (or Pyotr or Petr) Berngardovich Struve (, ; – 22 February 1944) was a Russian political economist, philosopher, historian and editor. He started his career as a Marxist, later became a liberal and after the Bolshevik Revolution, joined ...

and

Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky (; ; January 20, 1865 - January 21, 1919) was a Russian and Ukrainian Marxism, Marxist, economist, and politician. He was a leading exponent of Legal Marxism in the Russian Empire and was the author of numerous works dea ...

, which led them to Bernstein's revisionism and to the

economism Economism is a direct reduction of any political or cultural phenomena or activities to economics. In particular, "economism" was a movement in early Russian Social Democratic Labour Party whose position was that the workers' struggle must be on ...

Yekaterina Kuskova Yekaterina Dmitriyevna Kuskova (; 1869–1958) was a Russian Empire Economism, Economist, journalist, and politician involved in founding both the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDRP) and the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party. ...

and

Sergei Prokopovich Sergei Nikolaevich Prokopovich (; 1871–1955) was a Russian economist, sociologist, Revisionist Social-Democrat and later a liberal politician. Life Prokopovich was born into a noble family in Tsarskoe Selo in 1871. In the early 1890s he bec ...

. On the characteristics of the circle and the newspaper, reported years after by Andreev: An article in the first issue denounced the current weakness of the workers' movement, at the "mercy of tsarism" and unable to fight "against the despotism of capitalists and the government" until it was established in "a compact force, the conscious strength of autonomy of the working class". This force should have been achieved by means of a "workers' box", the only support that would have made the movement's activity possible. At that point the worker could have assumed "the responsibility of his own destiny, taking it from the hands of his bosses". The columnist believed that politics always "economically follow the economy and that ultimately the limitations and constraints proper to politics are relaxed during this process", and from this consideration he deduced for the labor movement the primary need to conduct an economic struggle. During 1896–1897, a long series of strikes forced the government to grant, on 16 June 1897, the law that lowered the duration of the working day to 11.5 hours. Commenting on those facts, the 7th issue of ''Rabochaya Mysl'' (July 1899) wrote that "a struggle of that kind, the struggle for the reduction of the working day, is a political struggle and constitutes an effective example of class consciousness". Similar reductions in the politics of trade union struggles were theorized in other issues of the newspaper. In number 11 (April 1901) it was written to fight "above all for the freedom of strike, of association and assembly, for the individual liberties of speech and of press, since these freedoms will facilitate the increase of our wages and the reduction of the working day". In order to conduct these battles, a political party was apparently not necessary, as it was not included among the means indicated in the 4th issue of the newspaper (October 1898) to "move the movement forward". Among the list of means were: strikes for wage increases and reductions in hours, «unions of secret workers and mutual aid», trade unions and workers' associations «structured according to the regulations of the Ministry of Interior», associations of consumers, educational and recreational centers, the union of fights for emancipation, journals and books «approved by the censorship» and even declarations printed in clandestine print shops. Because of the criticism received by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

, in 1900, Konstantin Tachtarev proposed that Plekhanov take over the direction of the newspaper. Plekhanov subordinated his acceptance to the consent of Lenin, who declared himself against it. As he wrote to Apollinariya Yakubova, "the inevitable divergences, substantial and not secondary, with the positions of the editors of the ''Rabochaya Mysl'' would only bring confusion in the social-democratic movement".Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ''Letter to Apollinariya Yakubova'', 26 October 1900, in ''Collected Works of V. I. Lenin'', Volume 34, p. 51-52. Positions similar to those of ''Rabochaya Mysl'' were carried forward by the newspaper ''

Rabocheye Delo ''Rabocheye Delo'' (, ''The Workers' Cause'') was a non-periodical political newspaper and an organ of the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. It ran from April 1899 to February 1902. The printing house was in Geneva and the editorial off ...

'' (, ''The Workers' Cause''), founded in

in April 1899 as the organ of the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad. The latter newspaper ceased publication in February 1902, ten months before ''Rabochaya Mysl''.

References

Bibliography

* K. S. Semenov, ''Il primo anno dell'Organizzazione operaia pietroburghese'', " Minuvšie Gody ", 12, 1908 * Jakov A. Andreev, ''Gli anni 1897 e 1898 a Kolpino'', " Proletarskaja Revoljucija ", 2, 1923 * Vladimir Ivanovich Nevskij, ''Storia del Partito bolscevico, dalle origini al 1917'', Milano, Pantarei, 2008

External links

All the issues of ''Rabochaya Mysl''
(in Russian) at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. * * {{cite web, url=http://www.agitclub.ru/hist/narod/tachtarev.htm, author=Konstantin M. Tachtarev, title=''The workers' movement in Petersburg (1893–1901)'' (in particular, chapters IX and XI), language=ru Newspapers published in the Russian Empire Newspapers established in 1897 Publications disestablished in 1902