From Peasant to Petersburger

Historians know what St Petersburg's industrial workers did during the revolution of 1905-7, the strike wave of 1912-14, and the revolutions of 1917. What they still do not know, however, is who these people were, where they came from, what were the paths of recruitment into industry that they followed, and what were their socio-economic characteristics. Evel Economakis analyses the processes of proletarianization and urbanization undergone by St Petersburg's industrial working...
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Historians know what St Petersburg's industrial workers did during the revolution of 1905-7, the strike wave of 1912-14, and the revolutions of 1917. What they still do not know, however, is who these people were, where they came from, what were the paths of recruitment into industry that they followed, and what were their socio-economic characteristics.
Evel Economakis analyses the processes of proletarianization and urbanization undergone by St Petersburg's industrial working class from its inception in the early nineteenth century up until 1941. He examines local conditions in sending areas and traces the history of factory workers from different provinces. He also studies the reasons which tied the migrant to urban jobs and the rural homeland. The author presents a wealth of new material on the social origins of the labour force of St Petersburg and concludes that a majority of the factory workforce was objectively proletarianized by 1914.