In tsarist Russia, the economic and political situation of the female worker was difficult and humiliating. She was subjected to severe exploitation and received 1.5-2 times less for equal work than a man. The participation of women in industrial production1 involved them in the labor movement, awakened their class consciousness. Since April 1912, after the Lena events, the working-class movement in Russia, as is well known, has again assumed a mass character and an offensive character. By the beginning of 1913, workers and women workers who had not previously taken part in strikes were being drawn into the strike struggle.
The women's proletarian movement was most noticeable at that time in the textile, chemical, clothing and footwear industries, in the bath and laundry establishments of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Ivanovo-Voznesensk; and occasionally - in various places in the Vladimir and Kostroma provinces, the Volga region, the Kingdom of Poland and the Baltic States .2 On March 31, 1913, Pravda noted: "The modern rise of the working-class movement is distinguished, among other things, by the marked and independent participation of women workers in the movement. We saw strikes in the weaving industry, where women were the skirmishers of the struggle. If earlier women often disrupted strikes initiated by men, then over the past 2-3 months there have been cases of almost the opposite nature."
Bolshevik organizations intensified political and educational work among female workers. The St. Petersburg Committee (PC) of the RSDLP sent to textile, tobacco, and clothing factories and workshops experienced Bolsheviks K. N. Samoilova, P. F. Kudelli, F. I. Drabkina, and E. F. Rozmirovich, as well as advanced students of Bestuzhev higher women's courses, Lesgaft courses, teachers and managers of physical education, and the Medical Institute .3 As the women's movement continued to grow throughout 1913, on December 29, 1913, a meeting of representatives of the party organizations of the Central Industrial District was held in Moscow together with the Moscow Regional Bureau of the RSDLP, which recommended "local organizations to pay special attention to agitation work among women and working women"4 .
Back in January 1913, in St. Petersburg, on the Vyborg side, the Bolsheviks held a meeting of female workers of leading enterprises, at which it was decided to celebrate International Women's Day and expand the ranks of the RSDLP and Proletarian trade unions at the expense of female workers .5 The Central Committee and PC of the RSDLP entrusted this task to Kudelli and Samoilova. And on February 17 (U.S.S.R.), International Women's Day 6 was celebrated for the first time in Russia . The Kalashnikov Bread Exchange Club hosted a "Scientific Morning
1 At the end of 1913, about 65,000 women (30% of employees) worked in the enterprises of St. Petersburg subordinate to the factory inspection, 68% in the textile industry of the city, 42% in chemical production, and 47% in clothing and footwear manufacturing enterprises (calculated from: Summary of reports of factory inspectors for the past year). 1913 Pg. 1914; Factory enterprises of the Russian Empire. 1914; Kruze E. E. Peterburgskie rabochii v 1912-1914 gg. [Petersburg workers in 1912-1914].
2 The working class of Russia. 1907-February 1917, Moscow, 1976, pp. 196-204; Arutyunov G. A. Rabochoe dvizhenie v Rossii v period novogo revolyutsionnogo vykhod 1910-1914 gg. [The working movement in Russia during the New Revolutionary Upsurge of 1910-1914].
3 Shidlovsky G. The Petersburg Committee of Bolsheviks at the end of 1913 and at the beginning of 1914-Krasnaya Letopis, 1926, No. 2, pp. 127-128.
4 Bulletin of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, 1914, No. 1, p. 28; Blonina E. (Armand I. F.). The struggle of working women in recent years. Odessa. 1920, pp. 28-29.
5 Pravda, 1913, NN 4, 18.
6 International Women's Day until 1914 was celebrated in different countries on different days of March.
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on the women's issue " 7, where female employees made presentations. A year later, the St. Petersburg Security Department reported to the Police Department: "Organized" women's day" on February 17 last year... It served as an impetus for the awakening of solidarity in women workers and interest in political party work. A good example is the subsequent election of women to the boards of various cultural and educational societies and trade unions. " 8
Similar events as in St. Petersburg were held in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Tula, Tver, Ryazan, where women's labor was widely used in the machine-building, textile, clothing, chemical and shoe industries. The Bolshevik press noted that working women became more familiar with social-democratic literature and joined not only the ranks of the working class, but also its party. One leaflet from the beginning of 1914 stated: "The eternal slave, the female worker, has already woken up from a heavy sleep, shaken off her slave chains, proudly raised the social-democratic banner and boldly joined the ranks of the proletarian army in order to fight for the protection of motherhood and women's labor, for the abolition of child labor, for the 8-hour worker for universal direct, equal and secret suffrage for all citizens of both sexes, and ultimately for the abolition of all exploitation, for the workers 'kingdom of socialism." 9
The task of coordinating this movement arose, in which the newspaper Pravda, No. 1 of which was published on April 22 (May 5), 1912, played an important role. From Pravda's department, The Life and Work of Working Women, 10 a women's legal Bolshevik magazine was born, about which V. I. Lenin wrote to Armand at the end of 1913: "Take up the women's magazine with arch-energy!"11 . Its creation was led by N. K. Krupskaya, I. F. Armand, L. N. Stal, A. I. Elizarova-Ulyanova, L. R. Menzhinskaya, Rozmirovich, Samoilova, Kudelli 12 . They became members of the editorial board of the journal. Through legal and illegal channels, she turned to the employees with a request for monetary assistance and to collect materials for the magazine. The appeal aroused the fervent support of proletarians. Despite the difficult financial situation, female workers and workers did not spare labor resources to support their press.
From St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladimir, Kiev, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Saratov, and many other industrial centers, the editorial office began to receive letters, notes, and resolutions of women's meetings, which touched upon the acute problems of the women's labor movement, issues of labor, everyday life, and wages, and pointed out facts that exposed the bullying of the factory administration.
No. 1 of the Rabochnitsa magazine was published on February 23 (March 8), 1914, for International Women's Day. It cost the editors of Pravda and Rabochnitsa a great deal of effort, and on February 18 and 19, the police arrested Rozmirovich, secretary of the Bolshevik Duma faction, Samoilova, a member of the editorial staff of Rabochnitsa, and Kudelli, Drabkina, and Menzhinskaya, who were also working there .13 Krupskaya wrote:: "Now, in connection with Women's Day in St. Petersburg, there are big arrests, the secretary of the "Worker", the clerk of the faction, etc. were taken away. In general, arrests are just a knife's edge. " 14 The cover of the magazine read: "Employee. 1st year of publication. Bi-weekly magazine. Price 4 kopecks. The magazine aims to comprehensively protect the interests of the women's labor movement."
The magazine opened with an editorial titled " St. Petersburg, February 23, 1914." It said: "Recently, in Russia, the issue of the organization of female employees has become one of the most pressing and urgent issues... Thanks to this, the employee... was pulled in... in the struggle waged by the working class for its rights. She was faced with a whole series of questions that life imperiously demands to be answered... The magazine "Worker" wants to come to her rescue. It will explain their interests to low-level employees. It will point out to them that they have common interests with the entire working class, not only in Russia, but in all countries. "Worker" bu-
7 Kruse E. E. Uk. soch., pp. 186-187.
8 TsGAOR USSR, f. DP, 00, 1914, 5, part 57, vol. 1, ll. 41-42.
9 Pamphlets of the Petersburg Bolsheviks, vol. 2, l. 1939, p. 93.
10 Pravda, 1913, No. 76.
11 Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 48, p. 243.
12 Historical Archive, 1955, N 4, p. 26.
13 TsGAOR SSSR, f. DP, OO, 1914, 5, ch. 57, vol. 1, ll. 45-47ob.; Slavnye bolshevichki, Moscow, 1958, pp. 220-221.
14 Proletarian Revolution, 1925, No. 8 (43), p. 133.
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Children will talk about how workers everywhere are coming together to fight for their rights... more and more women workers are also joining the working-class movement - this most downtrodden, most oppressed section of the proletariat. And they join the ranks of the fighters for the great ultimate goal of the workers 'movement." 15 The editorial was written by Krupskaya 16 .
The magazine published greetings from members of the Sampsonievsky Cultural and Educational Society (they brought "their possible help in the amount of 16 rubles. 30 kopecks."); from the workers of the plant A. Ya. Aivaz (on behalf of 350 people they made a "feasible contribution" of 60 rubles.); from a group of clerks, who decided to: "To take over the distribution of this magazine in the amount of 300 copies and organize a wide collection of donations for its support"; from the Kremenchug workers, political exiles of Mezen, etc. 17 .
Rabochnitsa immediately joined the struggle for workers ' rights. The actual absence of workers ' legislation, the arbitrariness of the factory owners, the appalling working conditions, the lack of basic safety measures, and the difficult living conditions of proletarian women were constantly covered on the pages of the magazine. The reader was led to believe that this could not continue, that it was necessary to eliminate the hard labor and living conditions of the proletariat. The magazine answered the questions posed by life itself: getting out of the servile state of an appendage of the machine is a joint revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy. The "worker" awakened the consciousness of the backward and illiterate strata of women, forced them to think about their fate and join the class struggle.
No. 2 of the magazine published an "Open Letter to all female employees": "Through many sacrifices and hard work, our magazine Rabochnitsa was created. The first issue came out, and as if everything became brighter, joyful hopes are crowding in my chest! No, this is not an empty hope. This is a deep belief: the "Worker", responding to the needs of proletarian women in unification, will serve the great ideal of the working class. Fellow workers, our magazine concerns us most closely; it is our vital business, and we must take it into our own hands, under our own protection.. We won't just be happy with the magazine... it is our duty to distribute it as widely as possible, and most importantly - to write in it. In simple terms, a story written by the worker herself about her hard life will best interest and attract a backward worker to the magazine " 18 . This letter was written by a Bolshevik from the Novy Aivaz factory, A.V. Afanasenkova, 19 whose pseudonym "Shura-metallistka" was well known to the participants of the labor movement.
A member of the party since 1910, a member of the board of the unions of textile and metal workers, a participant in three Russian revolutions, Afanasenkova (by her husband - Artyukhina) in Soviet times was in charge of the women's department of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and at the same time was the editor of Rabochnitsa in 1924-1926. later she was a member of the Organizing Bureau and a candidate member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the party, She was a delegate to the XIII, XIV, XV and XVI Party congresses, was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor in 1960, and was awarded three Orders of Lenin and two Orders of the Badge of Honor .20 Other members of the editorial staff, Elizarova-Ulyanova, Samoilova, V. K. Slutskaya, Menzhinskaya, N. F. Agadzhanova [21], also carried out extensive organizational and propaganda work on the instructions of the party: they performed in factories and factories, met with female employees in the editorial office of the magazine [22].
In March - April, Rabochnitsa published a series of articles in defense of proletarian workers of rubber and tobacco enterprises. At the Triangle rubber manufactory, entrepreneurs, in pursuit of cheaper production, forced workers to use low-quality glue. As a result, on March 12-13, 1914, about 300 people were poisoned. On March 14, about 400 more female employees were hospitalized. All the workers left the company in protest. But on the first day after the resumption of work, on March 18, more than a thousand people were poisoned again. The proletariat of the capital was outraged. March 17-20
15 Rabochnitsa Publ., 1914, No. 1, pp. 1-2.
16 Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. Biografiya [Biography], Moscow, 1976, p. 124.
17 Rabochnitsa Publ., 1914, No. 1, pp. 2-3.
18 Ibid., No. 2, p. 1.
19 There is also another spelling of the surname: Afanasenko.
20 Essays on the history of the Leningrad Organization of the CPSU. 1883-1917. Vol. 1. l. 1980, p. 277; Pravda, 10. IV. 1969; about it, see also: Voprosy istorii, 1984, N 11, p. 182.
21 See about her: Voprosy istorii, 1984, No. 10, pp. 94-105.
22 Glorious Bolsheviks; Women of the Russian Revolution, Moscow, 1982.
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about 160,000 female workers participated in the protest strikes .23 These actions were supported by the students. Meetings organized by the Bolshevik Joint Committee of the Social-Democratic factions of the higher educational institutions of St. Petersburg were held at the St. Petersburg University, the Polytechnic Institute, the Mining Institute, and other higher educational institutions.
Every day Pravda published articles and notes on the events at the Triangle. The Bolshevik faction submitted to the Fourth State Duma a sharp request-protest 24 . After the St. Petersburg Society of Manufacturers and Breeders declared a lockout, Rabotnitsa published a series of articles in defense of proletarians. The article "They were angry" said: "The lockout is a strike of the factory owners. After all, if only a few owners, or even all the owners of a particular branch of production, close their factories, the workers are in danger of starvation... What should I do? The trouble itself teaches us, the workers. There is still only one means: cohesion and organization. " 25 The St. Petersburg Press Committee seized and confiscated almost the entire circulation of the next issue of the magazine for publishing the articles "A wave of morbidity among workers", "They got Angry" and the poem "Worker". Its editor F. V. Martsinkevich was brought to administrative responsibility 26 .
The first Bolshevik legal mass magazine for women taught its readers the ABC of class struggle, promoted the growth of class consciousness of working women, one of the indicators of which was the very creation of the magazine "Worker" 27 . In the April-May days of 1914, its editorial staff received many letters of greetings on the occasion of Proletarian Press Day. Letters, appeals, and money to the Pravdy and Rabotnitsa Foundations were received from Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Tula, Kishinev, Irkutsk, Penza, Tver, Warsaw, Riga, Nizhny Novgorod, and all over Russia .28 Behind each letter were the living destinies of the workers, their hopes and aspirations. By that time, the magazine had gained not only national, but also foreign fame. On May 4, 1914, he published on behalf of the international Women's Revolutionary movement a greeting to Russian working women signed by one of the leaders of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, K. Zetkin29 .
From February to June 1914, seven issues of Rabochnitsa were published (three of them were confiscated by the police). No. 8 was being prepared for publication, but due to the outbreak of the First World War, the tsarist government banned the publication of legal Bolshevik press, including Pravda and Rabochnitsa. However, the women's Bolshevik magazine managed to make a significant contribution to raising the class consciousness of proletarians and increasing their organization. The publication of Rabochnitsa was resumed after the February bourgeois-Democratic Revolution of May 10 (23), 1917. This magazine still enjoys the love and authority of Soviet women, and firmly preserves its glorious traditions.
23 Istoriya rabochikh Leningradki [History of Leningrad Workers], vol. 1, l. 1972, pp. 453-454.
24 Ibid., p. 454; Essays on the history of Leningrad University. Issue II. L. 1968, pp. 9-10.
25 Worker, 1914, N 3, p. 4.
26 Ibid., No. 4, p. 1.
27 See ibid., No. 3, p. 4.
28 TsGAOR USSR, f. DP, OO, op. 225, perlustration, 1914, 970, ll. 1, 79, 80, 81; 971, ll. 2, 9, 19 - 26, 31, 55, 61sl.
29 Rabochnitsa Publ., 1914, No. 5, p. 1.
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