University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton

child. She died in 1892 without
having
been able
to
return
home.
A
particularly distressing
episode
in the
history
of the exiled members of the
People's
Will occurred in 1889 and is known
as
the Kara
Tragedy.
One of the
women
who lived in that
penal
colony, N.Sigida,
was
subjected
to
such brutal
physical
13
ibid.,
195-6

49
punishment
by
the
prison authorities,
she died
a
few hours later. In
protest
three
women
prisoners, Kovalevskaia,
Smirnitskaia and Kaliuzhnaia took their
own
life
by
poisoning.
Two
men
followed their
example.
'A
Friend' but
not
'a Comrade'
By
mid 1880s the
People's
Will had been all but obliterated. The
new
groups, which
began
emerging
towards the end ofthat
decade,
were
leaning
towards
Marxism and
called
themselves social
democratic
organisations.
These
organisations,
while based
on
different theoretical
foundations,
were
closer
to
the Narodniki of the 1870s in the
methods
they
employed
to
reach the
people.
In
the
early
1880s besides Koval'skaia's
Union,
both Land and
Liberty
and Black
Repartition
conducted
propaganda
at
large
metal
works,
but also in
working
class
districts
such
as
Vyborg,
Nevskii and
Vasil'evskii
Island,
all districts of
Petersburg.
Where Koval'skaia had used
mass
meetings
to
reach
workers,
Land and
Liberty
and Black
Repartition
organised
in small
circles.
Setting
a
pattern
for the
1890s,
the circles which
were
established in the
early
1880s concentrated
on
basic
literacy
and numeracy
skills,
with talks
on
socialist
theory,
the
history
of the labour
movement
in the west,
as
well
as
the conditions of the
working
class
at
home.
By
the mid 1880s the urban
working
class had taken
on an
enhanced
importance
in the
eyes
of the
revolutionary
intelligentsia, partly through
the
influence
of Marxist
ideas, partly through
the
practical
experience
of
propaganda
and
organisations
in the factories.
In 1883 Pavel
Tochisskii,
himself
an
intellectual who had become
a
skilled
worker
and who looked
on
the
intelligentsia
as
temporary guests
in the labour
movement, established the Association of
St.
Petersburg
Working
Men. Tochisskii
accepted help
from students and
intellectuals,
but concentrated his efforts
on
building
an
organisation
of
workers for workers.
Hence,
his focus
was
the skilled male
worker,
whom he viewed
as
the 'natural' leader of his class.
Perhaps,
it
was
because bis focus
was
so
narrow,
in
terms
of
class,
gender
and
skill,
that his
organisation
lasted for four
years
until
1888,
a
remarkable achievement in the circumstances. Yet
despite
the low
esteem
in which he seemed
to
hold
students,
some
female
students,
including
his
sister
Mariia
Tochisskaia,
joined
his circle.
In
his book
Zhenshchina
v
russkom
osvoboditel
'nom
dvizhenii,
Tsederbaum describes Mariia
as
playing
an
active role in
the Association
of St.
Petersburg Working
Men.
Tsederbaum also mentions
a
circle of

50
women
from
Laferm
tobacco
factory organised by
her and her
friends,
Arkadakskaia
and
Danilova.
Among
factory
workers
attending
the circle he
names
Anastasiia
Andreeva, Volkova,
Sofia
Konstantinova
and others. He makes
no
explanation
who
these others
were.
There is
no
further
biographical
data
in the book
on
any
of the
women
mentioned,
except
one
comment
about
Danilova
who is said
to
have fallen
mentally
ill while
serving
a
prison
sentence.
However,
volume
V
of DRDR has
a
reference
to
Anastasiia
Andreeva,
a woman
worker
engaged
in the
revolutionary
movement
of the
period, according
to
which it
was
she who founded the circle for her
fellow
women
workers in the tobacco
factory
at
the end of the 1880s.
It
is
possible
then that Andreeva
was an
important
member of the circle.
Certainly,
women
from
the
factory
were
among the
most
active in the
Petersburg
strike
movement
of later
years. The
same
volume has
an
entry
for Liubov' Vasil'evna Arkadakskaia who
was a
member of Tochisskii's circle
between
1885 and 1886.
A
search for information
on
other
members,
however,
yielded
no
result.
Tochisskii laid the foundation for the Brusnev
organisation
of
1889-92,
which
is discussed in the
following chapter,
while his activities also served
to
encourage
workers,
such
as
the
lithographer
Aleksei Karelin
(future
husband of Vera Karelina
whose
political
activities
began
in the Brusnev
circles)
to
establish their
own
self-
education
circles.
Male workers drawn
to
study
circles in the 1880s
were
atypical:
literate,
skilled,
unmarried and teetotal.
Most
male
peasant-workers
were
married,
having
left
their wives and children in the
village,
whereas female
peasant
workers tended
to
be
single (including
widows)
and
marginal
to
the
village
economy. It
was
the
men
above
all
who
maintained
contact
with their
peasant
roots.
Since male and female workers in
towns
and cities lived
separate
lives -different
jobs
and accommodation
-
it
was
only
by making special
efforts that
women
workers could be reached. In view of the
dangers
of such
activity,
only
when
women were
recruited
to
the
factory
labour
force
in
large
numbers would it be worth the
extraordinary
effort. Hence
women were
for
the
most
part
ignored by
revolutionaries
not
just
because
they
were
women,
but
because
the
pervasive
presence
of
police
agents
and the
gendered
division of labour
meant
skilled male workers
were
easier
to contact
than unskilled female workers. This
also
meant
that the skilled male workers had limited
access
to
and
influence
on
the
mass
of
unskilled,
especially
female,
workers. The
impression
then is that the labour
movement
was
overwhelmingly
male.
As
the number of female workers
increased,

51
however, and
as
they
became central in
key
industries,
most
notably textile,
the labour
movement
was
forced
to
take
women
into
account.
When I started work
on
the thesis
I
was
aiming
to
find
as
many
women
workers
who had been
engaged
in the
revolutionary
movement
as
possible.
The
research
into the 1870s
was
disappointing
in this
regard.
This
was
of
no
particular
surprise
to
me
but nevertheless it
was a
disappointment.
I
was
hoping
to
uncover more
interesting
and
promising
material for the late
1880s,
the
period
when the
increasing
speed
of
industrialisation
in Russia
meant
more
peasants,
including
women,
were
drawn into cities.
My
efforts
were
rewarded
only
to
a
small
degree.
In
addition
to
the information about the Laferm
factory
circle,
Tsederbaum
gives
examples
of
a
few wives of social democratic workers who
were,
or
became
revoliutsionerki. The first
woman
is Ekaterina
Moiseenko,
who
was
married
to
Petr
Moissev.
According
to
Tsederbaum,
Ekaterina
'shared
with
[her husband]
all the
adversities' for
many years.
Peasant
by
birth,
she
followed
her husband
to
the
city
where she
began
work in
a
textile
factory.
Married
to
a
revolutionary
she
too
was
slowly
converted
to
the
revolutionary
cause.
Her
political
activities
involved
keeping
a
safe
house and
performing
tasks for the
organisation
often with
a
risk
to
her
own
life.
No
details of the tasks
are
given
but
Ekaterina
is known
to
have followed her
husband into exile.
In
a
similar
way,
another
woman
worker,
S.
Agapova,
became
a
socialist.
She
too
was
married
to
a
revolutionary
worker whom she followed
to
Siberia. These
women
show that
not
every
working
man's wife
was a
drag
on
the
labour
movement.
But
an
example
that stands
out
is that of Anna Vol'nova. Married
to
a
Kharkov
metal
worker,
she
was
described
by
one
of her husband's
comrade-in-arms,
somewhat
condescendingly,
as a
young
and
simple
meshchanochka
(a
diminutive
form
of
meshchankd).
She is said
to
have treated her husband's comrades
'as
a
loving
sister
and
a
friend'. She
always
had food for them in the house and
was
ready
to
put
them
up
whenever
required.
We learn that her husband
taught
her
literacy.
She
performed
tasks for her husband's
organisation,
although
she did
not
belong
to
it. Her
activities
may
have
begun
as
just
another
wifely
duty,
but Vol'nova's
political
consciousness
was
raised
nevertheless,
and she
too
became committed
to
the
cause
of
revolution.
In
spite
of the fact that
they
had
a
child
she insisted that
a
printing
press
should
be
set
up
in their house.
No
fear of
reprisal
could
change
her mind. She is
recorded
as
saying:

52
If
I
feel I can't stand
[torture],
I shall kill
myself,
don't
worry...
Don't
try
to
change
my mind:
I
won't leave... You think I do
not
understand
anything.
Do
you
think that if
I go you
won't be discovered? How
can
you
cope without
a
woman? You
can
endure
anything
and I can't?
I
shall
prove
to
you... I
shall
prove
to
you
all., that I
am
not
afraid of
any
torture...14
To
prove
her
point
Vol'nova burnt
herself
with
cigarettes
on
her chest. The
couple
were
eventually
arrested and
sent to
the
penal
colony
on
Sakhalin Island where she
.
died.
I found this
extract
a
striking example
of
a
patronising,
not to
say
derogatory,
attitude
of
a
male worker
to
the efforts of
a
woman,
the wife of his comrade-in-arms.
After
informing
us
that Anna
performed
various tasks for the
organisation
in
a manner
no
different and
at
times better than the
men,
Pankratov,
her husband's
friend,
tells
us
that she 'of
course'
did
not
belong
to
the
organisation.
We
can
only
assume
that he
meant
she
did
not
pay any
dues
as on
the basis of what he had told
us
Vol'nova
most
certainly
deserved
to
be called
at
least
an
'honourable' member ofthat group.
Volume III of DRDR
too
has
a
reference
to
the
Vol'novs.
In
1883 I.Vol'nov
and Pankratov
set
up
an
illegal printing
house in Kharkov. Anna is described
as
helping
the
organisation.
No dates of birth
or
death
are
available for her. The
reference
simply
states
that she died of tuberculosis
on
the
island.
Apart
from Anna
there is
one
other reference
to
a woman
worker.
The
case
of
Anna
Vol'nova
helps
to
some
extent to
understand
why
so
little
written
evidence is available. Viewed
as
downtrodden and
ignorant,
workers' wives
were
looked down
upon
by
these
'superior'
male workers who tended
to
shun
marriage
as a
distraction from the revolution. In
spite
of her obvious close
involvement
in the
organisation,
Anna
is
depicted
as an
appendage
to
her husband
incapable
of
independent
action. She
may
be
'a
sister' and 'a friend' but
not
'a
comrade'.
As
Tsederbaum
wrote:
Many
such courageous
women
gave
direct and indirect
help
to
the
revolutionary
movement.
Unfortunately history
has
not
preserved
their
S.
Tsederbaum,
Zhenshchina
v
russkom revoliutsionnom
dvizhenii,
152

53
names
and these Anna
Alekseevnas,
wives
and
mothers
of
workers,
inconspicuous
and unknown left the
scene,
helping
their husbands and
sons
and their comrades
unnoticed.15
This
attitude
was
to
prevail
for
many
years to
come.
Two volumes of the
DRDR
have
references
to
the 1880s. Volume III
was
fully
devoted
to
the
information
on
revolutionaries
ofthat decade. Volume
V
had data
on
social
democrats,
who
were
active between 1880 and 1904. Natal'ia
Grigor'eva,
a
worker
herself
whose
activity
I
shall examine
more
closely
in the
next
chapter,
features in it
as
running
a
circle
for
women
workers in Narva.
Materialy
dlia
biograficheskogo
slovaria sotsial-demokratov
(MBSSD)
gives
Grigor'eva
the
following
characteristic:
'GRIGOR'EVA,
Natal'ia
Aleksandrovna
(Aleksandrova,
Sadovskaia),
born in
1865,
meshchanka, literate,
seamstress.
One of the first
women-
workers who devoted herself
to
the
working
class
movement.'16
During
my
research I collected
information
on
220 individual
women
who
were
known
to
be
engaged
in
revolutionary
work in the 1870s and 1880s. One
hundred and
fifty
of these
women
were
entered
into
my
final
database, including
the
six
women
workers mentioned above.
Though
the
only
information I discovered for
the latter
was
their
names
and
professions
(Grigor'eva being
an
exception
with
more
details of her life
given
in the
next
chapter)
I believe their inclusion into
my
final
analysis
of women's social
origins
is
important.
Without
even
this small number of
workers the
picture
will
not
be
complete.
The chart
on
social
origins
(see
below)
visually
demonstrates that
by
the end
of the 1880s the
composition
of the female revolutionaries
was more
diverse than in
the 1870s when
women
from the
gentry
and
more
privileged
classes
were an
overwhelmingly
dominant force in the
movement.
Representatives
from all walks of
life,
including
women
workers,
were
entering
the
movement.
At
least in
one
case,
N.Grigor'eva,
we
know that she continued
to
take
part
in
carrying
out
propaganda
among
her co-workers. She and
A.
Andreeva
are
also
examples
of
pioneering
female
workers
who
not
only
expressed
interest in
revolutionary
theory
but
actively
propagandised
it
by setting
up
the first circles directed
at
their fellow
women
workers.
15
ibid.,
153
Nevskii,
Materialy
dlia
biograficheskogo
slovaria
sotsial-demokratov,
vstupivshikh
v
rossiiskoe
rabochee
dvizhenie
za
period
ot
1880 do
1905,
200

54
Chart
1:
Social
Origins
of
Revoliutsionerki
of the
1880s
Unknown
Merchants
/
Clergy
Peasantry
Workers
Gentry
Intelligentsia
Meshchanstvo
Sluzhashchie
During
my
research
I
did
not encounter
any
further evidence of
such circles in the
latter
part
of the 1880s. The
prosopographical
data
on
other
women
is
generally
full
giving
an
overall
picture
of the
type
of female
revolutionaries
engaged
in the radical
movement
between 1870 and 1889. The
majority
of them
came
from
privileged
backgrounds
and had
access
to
good
education. Indeed
it
was
through
their
association
in
colleges
or
institutes
that
many
of them
came
to
believe
(if
not
desire)
that there
was a
need
to
change
the
society they
lived in. Most female
revolutionaries
were
young and in their
early
twenties when
they
entered the
movement.
So
was
the
only
woman
worker for whom
I
have the date of
birth.
Generally
there
was
a
strong
family
connection among these
participants.
The data contains
many
examples
of
siblings
taking
part in the work of
one
organisation.
The
family
connection
was
also
established
through
the
marriages
between female
and
male group members. The
hazardous
nature
of their work which included subversive
propaganda,
underground
printing
and
manufacturing
explosives
did
not
preclude
women
from
having
children,

55
though questions
and
doubts
were
raised in the minds of
some over
the
rights
and
wrongs
of such decisions.
Special
women-only
groups did exist but
invariably
they
joined
forces with male groups
(as
a
result of
a
mutual
decision)
to
become
more
effective
in their work. What
women
did in the
organisation
did
not
on
the whole
differ
from male
occupations.
Both
genders
carried
out
propaganda,
printed
clandestine