The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps 0253363810, 9780253363817

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Odessa on the Eve of 1905
THE RUSSIAN EL DORADO?
The Rise of Odessa
Population Growth in Odessa
Nationality in Odessa
Ethnic Relations in Odessa
Economic Rivalry and the Impact of War
2 Workers in Odessa on the Eve of 1905
Metalworkers: Skill and Community
Tailors and the Impact of Capitalism on Workshop Production
Day Laborers
Nationality and the Work Force
3 Labor Organizations and Politics before 1905
Legal Labor Activities
Illegal Labor Activities: Workers and Revolutionary Parties
Zubatovism and the 1903 General Strike
Concluding Remarks
4 First Stirrings: The Workers' Movement from January to May
The Opening of the Political Arena and the Radicalization of Labor
Workers Move into Action
The Politicization of Odessa Workers:
The Case of Salesclerks
The Spread of Labor Unrest
Concluding Remarks
5 First Confrontation: Popular Unrest in May and June
POPULAR UNREST IN MAY AND JUNE
Strikes in May
The June Days
The Battleship Potemkin and the Odessa Uprising
The Jewish Question Emerges
Concluding Remarks
6 Breathing Spell and Renewed Confrontation
The Quiet before the Storm
The Storm Breaks: October 1905
7 Politics and Pogrom
The October Pogrom
Explaining the Pogrom
The Aftermath of the Pogrom
8 Final Confrontation
The Emergence of lYade Unions
The Politics of Trade Unions
The Soviet of Workers* Deputies
The Soviet and Politics
The December Strike
Conclusion
Appendix
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

THE REVOLUTION OF --------------- 1905 ----------------

IN ODESSA

Indiana-M ichigan Series in R ussian an d E ast E uropean Studies Alexander Rabinowitch and William G. Rosenberg, general editors Advisory Board D em ing Brown Ben Eklof Jane Burbank Zvi Gitelman R obert W. Campbell Hiroaki Kuromiya H enry C ooper David Ransel H erbert Eagle Ronald G rigor Suny William Zimmerman

S tu d ies o f the H a rrim a n In s titu te C olum bia U niversity

THE REVOLUTION OF ---------------------------

1905

----------------------------

IN ODESSA BLOOD ON THE STEPS

Robert Weinberg

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington • Indianapolis

01993 by Robert Weinberg All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United Sates of America lib ra ry o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publicatioo D a a Weinberg, Robert. The revolution o f 1905 in Odessa : blood on the steps / Robert Weinberg. p. cm. — (Indiana-Michigan series in Russian and East European studies) (Studies of the Harriman Institute) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-253-36381-0 1. O desa (Ukraine)—History. 2. Ukraine—History—Revolution, 1905-1907. 3. Labor movement—Ukraine—O desa—History. 4. Jews— Ukraine—Odessa—Persecutions. 5. O desa (Ukraine)—Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Studies of the Harriman Institute DK264.2.03W45 1993 947’.717—dc20 92-23096 1 2 3 4 5 97 96 95 94 93

In m em ory o f B ill Jacobson, who m ade m y life much richer

She sta rte d d a n cin ’ to th a t fin e fin e m usic Ton know her life wets saved by rock’n ’roll — Lou R eed

CONTENTS A cknow ledgm ents In tro d u c tio n

xi xiii

1. O dessa o n th e E ve o f 1 9 0 5 : T h e R ussian E l D orado?

1

2 . W orkers in O dessa o n th e Eve o f 1 9 0 5

31

3 . L ab o r O rg an izatio n s an d P olitics b efo re 1905

54

4 . F irst S tirrings: T h e W orkers* M o v em en t from January to M ay

83

5 . F irst C o n fro n ta tio n : P o p u lar U n re st in M ay an d Ju n e

117

6 . B reath in g Spell an d R enew ed C o n fro n ta tio n

144

7 . P olitics a n d P o g ro m

164

8 . Final C o n fro n ta tio n

188

C o n clu sio n

225

A p p e n d ix A b b revia tio n s N otes B ibliography In d e x

235 238 240 277 295 Photographs fo llo w pages 2 3 a n d 1 6 7

LIST OF TABLES T ab le 1: N u m b e r o f F acto ries u n d e r F acto ry In sp ectio n

4

T ab le 2: P o p u latio n G ro w th in O dessa

7

T able 3: N atio n ality in O dessa B ased o n L an g u ag e, 1 8 9 7

11

T able 4 : Size a n d D istrib u tio n o f th e O dessa L ab o r F orce by S ecto r o n th e Eve o f 1905

32

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Like many first books by historians, this one had its origins as a dissertation. I am grateful to tw o o f my teachers at the University o f California, Berkeley, N icholas Riasanovsky and Victoria Bonncll, w ho guided me through the various stages o f my graduate career and provided valuable feedback on my thesis. People familiar w ith the work o f Vicky Bonncll should recognize the im print her ideas have had on my analysis o f Odessa workers and the 1905 revolution. My largest scholarly debt is owed to Reginald Zelnik, my dissertation adviser, w ho has been a formative force in the study o f Russian labor and urban social history. As friend, m entor, critic, and counselor, he has influenced my intellectual developm ent in profound ways. N ot only has Reggie provided invaluable com m ents on various versions o f this m anuscript, but he has offered timely advice, support, and encouragem ent at every stage o f my fledgling career. It has been a great honor and privilege to work w ith Reggie, and I am sure th at I speak for others when I state th at the historical profession is deeply indebted to him for his unstinting generosity, warm th o f personality, and dedication to his students and colleagues. In addition to the persons m entioned above, I have benefited from the advice, support, and insightfal criticisms offered by Abraham Ascher, R obert DuPlcssis, M ichael H am m , John Klier, Lillian Li, Adele Lindenm eyr, Lynn Mally, Joan N cubeiger, Alexander Rabinowitch, Janet Rabinowitch, H ans Rogger, William Rosenberg, Steve Sm ith, Gerald Surh, and C harters W ynn. My interest in Russian Jewry was first piqued by Alexander O rbach. My parents were instru­ m ental in instilling in me a love for books, and I am grateful for their support o f my academic endeavors over the years. I wish to thank the following institutions and organizations for providing financial support for this project: the University o f California, Berkeley; the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; the M emorial Foundation for Jewish C ul­ ture; the International Research and Exchanges Board; the Fulbright-H ays D octoral D issertation Research Abroad Program ; the C enter for Russian and East European Studies at Stanford University; the W. Averell H arrim an Institute for Advanced Study o f the Soviet U nion at Colum bia University; and the Sw arthm ore College Faculty Research Fund. I am also grateful to the Slavic specialists and staffs o f the following libraries and archives for their excellent assistance: the University o f California, Berkeley; the H oover Institution on Peace, War, and Revolution at Stanford University; the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the New York Public Library; the Bund Archives o f the Jewish Labor M ovem ent; the Bakhm eteff Archive o f Russian and East European H istory and C ulture a t Colum bia University; the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris; the Lenin Library and Central State Archive o f the O ctober Revolution in M oscow; and the Central State H istorical Archive in Petersburg. Finally, I w ant to express how impressed I am w ith Nick Jackiw for his rendition o f the map o f Odessa.

xü

A cknowledgments

I also wish to thank die editors o f The C arl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, Slavic Review, and R ussian Review for permission to reprint materials in chapters three, four, and seven. I dedicate this book to Laurie Bernstein and our son Perry. The love that Laurie has showered on me has helped sustain me throughout the arduous process o f first w riting a dissertation and then transform ing it into a book. She som ehow has found the tim e in her own busy professional and personal schedule to read countless versions o f the m anuscript and has endured the ravings o f a frustrated author. Laurie has p u t up w ith my m oodiness for m uch to o long, and I thank her from the bottom o f my heart. The arrival o f Perry in my life has forced me to place my work on Odessa in its proper perspective and realize that the w orld does n o t revolve around unearthing why workers in 1905 became politicized. A t tim es Perry’s random and indiscrim inate pounding on the key­ board o f my PC—m ind you, he still cannot read and w rite—has produced sentences that are m ore elegant than those th at em anate from my fingertips. Perry has a vague understanding th at his m other and father teach “students,” b u t I suspect th at w hat he likes m ost about his parents’ chosen profession is the opportunity it affords his babysitters to take him to the student cafeteria fix dinner.

INTRODUCTION This book is m eant as a contribution to the grow ing literature on 1905 and the labor m ovem ent in late Im perial Russia.1 In 1905 the governm ent o f Tsar N icholas II freed a crisis o f m ajor proportions as peasants, w orkers, white-collar employees, professionals, intellectuals, soldiers and sailors, and even noble landow ners challenged the tim e-honored prerogatives o f autocratic governm ent. T hrough widespread political agitation, urban strike actions, and rural rebellions, the various strands o f the opposition m ovem ent nearly brought the governm ent to its knees. In the end, the regim e w eathered the crisis by granting timely concessions o f political and civil rights. The governm ent benefited from fissures in the opposition m ovem ent that began to appear tow ards the end o f the year and relied o n the m ilitary to restore order in both the d ty and countryside. A lthough this policy o f giving w ith one hand and taking back w ith the other did n o t satisfy all opposition groups and even drove some o f them deeper into die camp o f political resistance, the governm ent by the end o f 1905 had regained enough confidence to devote the next eighteen m onths to reconsolidating its power. H istorians have long recognized the crucial role th at urban workers played in forcing the governm ent to issue the O ctober M anifesto, the decree, prepared by Sergei W itte and grudgingly approved by Nicholas, that granted fundam ental civil and political rights and th at prom ised the establishm ent o f a nationally elected legislative assembly. In recent years non-Soviet scholars have begun to study in detail the 1905 w orkers’ m ovem ent, focusing on the aspirations, organizations, and actions o f urban workers and uncovering the relationship betw een labor unrest and the revolutionary situation enveloping Russia. These scholars have been interested in revealing the motive forces o f Russia's urban revolution in 1905 and explaining why labor erupted in th at year into a jugger­ naut th at contributed to the near toppling o f the autocracy. The crucial issue fix these historians has been the radicalization o f urban workers during the course o f 1905, specifically the politicization o f their grievances and actions. They have asked to w hat extent labor unrest derived from a logic rooted in the daily experiences o f workers. They have also examined the influence o f the radical and liberal intelligentsia on workers and have sought to ascertain the specific conjuncture o f political, social, and economic forces that ignited the workers’ m ovem ent and led workers to express their econom ic discontent in the forum o f local and national politics. T he appearance o f trade unions and soviets o f w orkers' deputies by the end o f the year marked the culm ination o f this process, as urban workers throughout the Em pire claimed rights o f citizenship, chal­ lenged superordinate authority, and asserted their right to participate in the running o f the workplace. For many workers, 1905 was a contest o f power

xiv

I ntroduction

between themselves and their social and political superiors, a struggle to achieve a life o f respect, dignity, and freedom . O ne aspect o f the 1905 revolution that has been overlooked in m uch o f this scholarship is the im pact o f ethnicity on the course o f events. This book focuses on Odessa, the fourth largest city in the Russian Em pire at the tu rn o f the century, n o t only because it experienced as m uch turm oil in 1905 as any other d ty in Russia, but also because no other d ty experienced a pogrom comparable in its violence and destruction to the one suffered by the Jews o f Odessa in that year. Odessa, like many other dties, bore little resemblance to the ethnically hom ogeneous industrial centers o f M oscow and St. Petersburg, and it is the d ty ’s ethnic heterogeneity th at provides us with an opportunity to broaden our understanding o f the im pact o f nationality and ethnidty on the political events o f this period. In 1905, Odessa’s 139,000 Jews (o u t o f a total city population o f half a m illion) form ed an integral part o f the econom y and sodety. The ethnic mix o f Odessa enables the historian to study the nature o f Russian-Jewish relations and anti-Semitism during the last decades o f the Romanov dynasty and examine why, how, and when ethno-religious conflicts became potent factors in the life o f the country. Since Jews in Odessa figured prom inently as workers, exam ination o f the interplay am ong ethnidty, occupation, and politics contrib­ utes to an expanded knowledge o f the underpinnings o f labor activism and hdps reveal how ethnidty affected the labor m ovem ent. The bloody O ctober pogrom is startling testim ony to the im pact o f class and ethnidty on events in Odessa. Soviet scholarship on Odessa suffers from the ideological constraints that had been imposed on the historical profession after Stalin's consolidation o f power. T he Soviet version o f 1905— particularly after the 1920s—has denigrated the autonom y o f the w orkers' m ovem ent and overstated the influence o f the Bol­ sheviks as the guiding light in the unrest o f 1905. The analysis presented in a lim ited num ber o f articles and books about the w orking and living conditions o f the labor force, the history o f Bolshevism, and the landm ark events o f 1905 is frequently distorted if n o t erroneous because o f the need to toe the party line on 1905. The selective publication o f police reports, governm ent com m uniqués, socialist pam phlets, and reminiscences o f revolutionaries has provided some insight into events, bu t n d th er these prim ary sources nor the secondary schol­ arship on Odessa reveal in any detailed o r systematic fashion the underlying tensions th at anim ated Odessa workers during 1905. Soviet historians have tended to neglect Odessa because o f the socio-econom ic character o f the dty, which depended on commerce and lacked a large industrial base. For ideological and political reasons, they have therefore preferred to examine other cities, notably M oscow and St. Petersburg, where the local econom ies were m uch m ore oriented tow ard m anufacturing. M oreover, the dom ination o f the local revolutionary movem ent by Mensheviks and the large Jewish presence in the d ty have made Odessa unsuitable for investigation by politically cautious Soviet scholars. To date, no Soviet m onograph devoted to the Revolution o f 1905 in Odessa exists.2 W ith regard to non-Soviet scholarship, only recently have several W estern

I ntroduction

xv

historians turned their attention to Odessa, bu t none has yet examined its experience o f the Revolution o f 1905. W ith few but significant exceptions, Odessa remains uncharted territory for historians o f the Russian labor and revolutionary m ovem ents.3 As a detailed account and analysis o f events in a m ajor urban center, this study should expand o ur understanding o f the revolu­ tionary process in 1905 by providing a window through which historians can view the crisis o f that year and the general contours o f the workers’ m ovem ent. An exam ination o f Odessa in 1905 enriches o ur understanding o f the intricate and m ultifaceted dim ensions o f politics and society and serves as a necessary corrective to the traditional focus on the tw o capital cities o f the Russian Em pire. Because workers played such a preem inent role in shaping and determ ining the events o f 1905 in Odessa, a narrative account o f the labor m ovement forms the core o f this book. This provides a basis from which to analyze the trem endous outburst o f w orker activism in 1905 and the radicalization o f certain categories o f the Odessa labor force. To state that activist workers were reacting to harsh w orking and living conditions is to grasp a p art, b u t only a part, o f their m otivation in 1905. To be sure, workers were responding to econom ic adversity w hen they sought higher wages, shorter hours, and other bread-and-butter advances. Yet to ignore the political context o f this labor unrest, o r to neglect the workers’ grow ing involvement in the political struggle against autocracy, is to give short shrift to the distinguishing feature o f the workers’ m ovem ent 1905: its highly charged and volatile political nature. For many workers the struggle for material im provem ents was part and parcel o f a larger fight for social, econom ic, and political dignity. Labor activism and the political crisis enveloping the autocracy reinforced each other, im pelling workers to em brace m ore radical stances as the year progressed and forcing the regim e against the wall. As one Odessa salesclerk w rote in the early spring o f 1905, the shop assistant “is not only a salesclerk but a citizen as well. I f he doesn’t enjoy rights o f citizenship, then he should achieve them . A long w ith other workers he should strive for basic freedom s o f speech, print, conscience, unions, and freedom to strike.”4 M oreover, the influence o f the radical intelligentsia, revolutionary socialists in particular, on Odessa workers and the resonance o f the socialists’ political message in the attitudes and actions o f the labor movem ent were im portant, if elusive, elem ents in the unrest o f 1905. Instead o f focusing exclusively on the m anufacturing sector, this study em ­ braces all w orking people by adopting a broad categorization o f workers that encompasses all those engaged in manual wage labor, including nonm anufac­ turing workers such as day laborers, sailors, and salesclerks. Casting such a wide net perm its exam ination o f the work force in all its diversity and allows us to capture m ore fully the flavor o f the events and to assess the actions o f all workers w ho played a m ajor role in the events o f 1905. Focusing on the entire spectrum o f the Odessa work force enables us to examine why labor protest was generally restrained in term s o f violence and why, on those rare occasions when strikes did becom e violent, they sometimes turned into bloody riots against Jews. T hat Jewish-gentilc tensions periodically degenerated into pogrom s, pitching Russian

XVI

I ntroduction

workers against Jewish ones, illustrates the political consequences o f labor violence and reveals how the social, ethnic, and occupational identities o f workers engaging in violent actions helped determ ine w hether labor protest and social unrest acquired revolutionary o r counterrevolutionary coloration.5 As A rno Mayer has w ritten: "C ounterrevolution is closely interlocked w ith revolution. In fact, the tw o are symbiotically related."6 Events in Odessa during 1905 offer insights into the complex relationship between politics and labor unrest. The bulk o f this book's narrative and analysis utilizes material gleaned from tw o kinds o f sources w hich, when considered in conjunction w ith the revolu­ tionary press and memoirs o f socialist activists, offer a detailed view o f labor activism and political unrest in Odessa in 1905. Russian workers infrequently left behind accounts o f their experiences, and therefore the historian m ust rely on sources filtered through the lens o f those educated Russians w ho observed and assessed the thoughts and behavior o f workers. The first source—the daily press—provides a wealth o f inform ation about the labor m ovem ent in 1905; from editorials and letters to the editors to brief (som etim es one- o r tw o-line) descriptions, as well as extended discussions o f workers’ grievances, dem ands, and strikes, O dessa's m ajor newspapers kept abreast o f the labor m ovem ent and did n o t shy away from covering those issues affecting social and political stability in the city. In addition, I had the good fortune to use the holdings o f TsGAOR, the C entral State Archive o f the O ctober Revolution, located in Moscow. In partic­ ular, I relied on docum ents pertaining to the Special Section (Osobyi otdcl) o f the tsarist M inistry o f Interior’s D epartm ent o f Police {fond 102). The Special Section was form ed in 1893 to com bat political subversion and w orked w ith the O khrana (tsarist Russia's infamous secret police) and C orps o f Gendarm es to carry o u t intelligence operations and weed o u t subversives and revolutionaries. The files o f the Special Section contain reports from various police officials operating in Odessa and, along with fo n d 124, a repository o f judicial proceed­ ings against persons charged w ith political crimes, offer a detailed look not only into the operations o f Russia's police force b u t, m ore im portantly for our purposes, into the inner workings o f the revolutionary m ovem ent and the dynamics o f labor and political unrest in Odessa from the m id-1890s through 1905. In St. Petersburg I worked in the C entral State H istorical Archive (TsGIA) where I primarily examined: the factory inspector reports (fond 23) on work stoppages, especially in 1903, and general inform ation about factories such as the num ber o f workers, hours o f w ork, and other w orking conditions after the turn o f the century; and judicial records o f individuals accused o f a variety o f crimes, including revolutionary and strike activities (fond 1405). O ne final note to the reader is in order. U ntil 1918 Russia used the old Julian calendar, which in the nineteenth century was twelve days and after 1900 thirteen days behind the G regorian calendar in use throughout the rest o f Europe. I have given all dates according to the Russian calendar.

THE REVOLUTION OF --------------- 1905 ----------------

IN ODESSA

D igitized by

Google

O riginal from

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

ip-nmppp^

1 Odessa on the Eve of 1905 THE RUSSIAN EL DORADO?

In Balzac’s Père Goriot, the protagonist fantasizes about moving to Odessa in order to strike it rich in the grain trade. Financially ruined by the lavish lifestyles o f his spoiled and pam pered daughters, Père G oriot hopes to amass a new fortune so he can continue supporting them in the regal m anner to which they are accustom ed. The feet th at Balzac selected Odessa as the place about which G oriot dreams o f feme and fortune testifies to its reputation by the 1830s as a m ajor commercial center where easy m oney could be made. The city’s distinction as a land o f opportunity rem ained alive through the rest o f the nineteenth century and into the tw entieth. A chronicler o f life am ong the Russian urban low er classes w rote at the turn o f the tw entieth century that Odessa still enjoyed prestige as a d ty where “gold could seemingly be raked in.” In a 1903 novella another observer similarly characterized Odessa as a “ magical” d ty “w here, it seems, there are no poor people and money, like stones, is scattered about the streets.” 1 This chapter examines how the image o f Odessa as a land o f opportunity conflicted with the harsh reality o f life in the city a t the turn o f the tw entieth century and created conditions ripe for the sodal and political turm oil o f 1905. T he unrest o f 1905 was shaped as m uch by the interconnection o f local sodal and econom ic developm ents in the decades immediately preceding 1905 as by the political crisis th at em erged during that revolutionary year. A com posite sociological and econom ic profile o f Odessa on die eve o f revolution underscores those aspects o f the city’s history that made it both similar to and different from o th er cities in late Im perial Russia and reveals why events in Odessa in 1905 Odessa were in some respects distinct from those elsewhere in the Empire. Like many o th er d ties o f the Em pire, Odessa experienced rapid grow th during die nineteenth century and underw ent significant changes in its econ­ om y as the expansion o f local and national m arkets and the industrialization drive o f the 1890s stim ulated the developm ent o f m anufacturing. The m ush­ room ing population, caused by the arrival o f tens o f thousands o f m igrants

2

T he R evolution of

1905 in O dessa

seeking jobs and b etter lives, created a host o f problem s for municipal author­ ities. The challenge o f housing, feeding, and educating all these new residents, let alone providing em ploym ent and safeguarding public health, strained the resources o f the city, and the d ty fathers were hard pressed to accom m odate the rapidly grow ing population. As in m ost o th er cities o f the Russian Em pire, the grow th o f public am enities, including basic sanitary m easures, often fell to the wayside under the sheer m agnitude o f the problem s engendered by the urban explosion. O dessa's problem s were also exacerbated by certain charac­ teristics th at the city shared w ith few o th er urban areas in the Russian Em pire: the variegated religious, national, cultural, and social backgrounds o f its resi­ dents; the predom inance o f foreign com m erce and finance in the local econ­ omy; and its strong W est European flavor. By the turn o f the tw entieth century, the hopes and expectations o f the vast m ajority o f Odessans had been under­ m ined by a com bination o f dem ographic, social, and econom ic developm ents. It took the political crisis o f the autocracy in 1905 to stim ulate large-scale unrest in O dessa, b u t the stage for revolution had already been set by pressing social and econom ic problem s.

The Rise o f Odessa Odessa’s m eteoric rise as a center o f commercial and financial significance is all the m ore startling w hen we consider that the territory nam ed Odessa in 1795 was nothing m ore than a small, sleepy trading village adjacent to a Tatar fortress th at the Russians had captured from the Turks a few years earlier. In 1794 Catherine the G reat ordered the developm ent o f the region in order to stabilize Russia’s conquest o f the w estern littoral o f the Black Sea and to prom ote trade in the area. A little m ore than a century later, Odessa was a bustling m etropolis o f nearly half a million inhabitants. Odessa’s reputation stem m ed from its prom inence as a m ajor entrepôt whose well-being depended o n the im port and export o f m anufactured and agricultural products, in particular grain and other foodstuffs. Odessa ranked as Russia’s num ber one p ort for foreign trade by the end o f the nineteenth century, handling the shipm ent o f nearly all the w heat and m ore than half the other grains exported from Russia. Grain exports, primarily w heat, com prised approximately 75 per­ cent o f the total value o f Odessa’s exports during the last years o f the nineteenth century. W ithout a doubt Odessa had become the preem inent p o rt for foreign com m erce, deservedly earning its nicknam e, pshenichnyi ¿prod—“the d ty o f w heat."2 Odessa’s econom ic rise in the early nineteenth century was made possible by a favorable mix o f geography, governm ent policies, and international and do­ mestic developm ents.3 M erchants were attracted to Odessa because it was near the grain produring regions o f southern Russian and lay doser to the markets o f the M editerranean and W estern Europe than did o th er ports on the Black and Azov Seas. In the early 1800s, the harbor at Odessa was also suffidendy

O dem o» the Eve o f1905

3

deep to accom m odate large ships and during the w inter did n o t freeze as readily as o th er harbors in the region.4 The governm ent adopted vigorous policies to spur the grow th n o t only o f Odessa b u t also o f New Russia, the territory acquired in the eighteenth century and com posed o f the provinces o f Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Kherson (in which Odessa was located), and, after 1828, Bessarabia. From the outset, the state offered inducem ents to prom ote settlem ent and investm ent in Odessa. Runaway serfs were assured their personal freedom and leaseholding status was prom ised to peasants resettled in New Russia by their landlords. In addition, the govern­ m ent provided incentives to foreign and Russian m erchants by offering generous land grants and tax exem ptions and prom oted the developm ent o f Odessa by financing the building o f the harbor and p o rt facilities. M unicipal authorities were granted sweeping powers to develop the local economy, w hich they strengthened by allocating custom s revenue to the building o f the city’s infra­ structure.5 Odessa’s governor-generals during the first half o f the nineteenth century exhibited foresight and vision by regularizing the collection o f custom s receipts, perm itting free storage o f im ported goods for a period o f up to one and a half years, and earm arking funds for the construction o f roads, schools, hospitals, and other public w ork projects.6 The disruption o f trade by N apoleon's C ontinental System impelled m er­ chants and industrialists to come to Odessa for grain, raw m aterials, and m an­ ufactured goods, all in abundant supply and cheaper than in W estern Europe during these years. As one historian has w ritten, Odessa “could easily attract to its p o rt ships and traders searching for refuge, labor, and profits.”7 Even though Odessa suffered a mild setback after N apoleon’s defeat and the revival o f trade routes and m arkets in W estern Europe, the d ty had by then firmly established itself as a center o f international com m erce. M oreover, unhindered passage for Russian commercial ships on the Black Sea and through the Straits, secured by the Treaty o f Adrianople in 1829, enabled Odessa m erchants to take advantage o f expanding opportunities in the M editerranean and W estern Europe.5 It was the conferring o f free-port status on O dessa, however, that catapulted the d ty into its preem inent commercial position. In 1817, Alexander I, con­ vinced o f the econom ic m erits o f the plan, decreed Odessa a free po rt, and from 1819 until 1859 Odessa enjoyed spetial status as a d ty where goods in transit for countries other than Russia were perm itted to enter and leave the d ty duty-free.9 In addition to prom oting com m erce, frcc-port status prom pted foreign and dom estic brokerage houses and banks to set up branch offices. It fueled the expansion o f Odessa’s trade in such luxury item s as w ine, perfum e, and spices and helped establish the d ty as a m ajor p o rt o f entry for goods bound for Russia as well as for those in transit to W estern Europe from the N ear East and the Caucasus.10 As Pushkin reportedly quipped, it was cheaper to drink wine than w ater in O dessa.11 In feet, the commercial and financial ties between Odessa and foreign m arkets were so strong that one observer w rote that free-port status “cu t o ff Odessa from the rem ainder o f Russia, creating, as it w ere, a state w ithin a state, so that the territory o f the Odessa p o rt and today’s m unidpality

4

T he Revolution of

1905 in O dessa

TABLE 1 Number of Factories under Factory Inspection Tear

Humber o f Factories

1883 1890 1898

206 332 513

The data for 1890 include only those enterprises w ith annual production totaling at least 1,000 rubles; the data for 1898 refer to those enterprises under the jurisdiction o f the Factory Inspectorate either because they employed at least fifteen workers or utilized engine-pow ered machinery. O m itted is the output o f hundreds o f small workshops, regardless o f the extent o f mechanization. Source: Bronshtein, Meryk ulucbsbeniiu, pp. 30-31; Statirticbcskoe obozrtnic Odcssyz* 1 8 9 0 pp. 140-142; M ikulin, Fabricbno-zavodskaia i rcmedentuUa promyshlmnost3v 1898¿odu, p. 11 and prilosbmü 1, sec. 8.

had closer ties w ith the European and Asiatic ports o f the Black and M editer­ ranean Seas than w ith the rest o f Russia or even New Russia.” 12 By the early years o f the reign o f Nicholas I (1825-1855), Odessa had becom e the m ajor commercial, adm inistrative, cultural, and educational center o f New Russia. In the post-Em andpation period Odessa’s com m erdal significance was bol­ stered even further by the expansion o f the railway netw ork that, in the 1860s and 1870s, finally linked the d ty indirectly to the m arkets located in the interior and the Caucasus. Developm ent o f the transport system strengthened Odessa’s ties to the increased agricultural production o f the fertile Black Earth region and reinforced the d ty ’s role as supplier o f im ported foodstuffs and manufac­ tured items to surrounding provinces. In the course o f the thirty years between the m id-1860s and 1894, grain exports from Odessa increased from between 30 and 40 million poods to nearly 160 m illion poods a year.13 T hat m ost m ajor trading firms in Odessa opened offices throughout Russia in these years under­ scores the grow th o f a national m arket in grain and the im portant role played by Odessa’s m erchants in that trade. The opening o f the Suez Canal in 1869, along w ith the appearance o f steam -powered commercial fleets at m id-century and establishm ent o f telegraph links between Odessa and foreign custom ers, also enhanced Odessa’s position. Prior to this Russia obtained m ost o f the Asiatic goods it im ported via its Baltic ports. N ow Odessa became even m ore o f a center o f im ported goods, because the canal made it profitable for foreign m erchants to ship goods to the d ty directly and then take advantage o f the infant rail system to distribute m erchan­ dise in markets located inside Russia.14 In order to handle the grow ing volume o f goods that passed through the p o rt each year, d ty officials undertook efforts to m odernize and expand the harbor. Beginning in the m id-1860s, they allotted m oney to deepen the harbor to perm it berthing o f larger freighters and to construct new piers, som e o f them outfitted after 1870 w ith conveyor belts. A breakwater was added, and both elevated and surface rail lines were built along the piers, facilitating the loading

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

5

and unloading o f ships from freight trains th at could now pull right up to dockside. O ther im provem ents, such as the introduction o f gas and electric lights and paved roads, made periodically throughout the rem ainder o f the century, added to the p o rt's capacity to handle a larger volume o f com m erce.15 Odessa’s econom ic strength did n o t rest solely on the grain trade, however. N ot all persons engaged in commerce were involved in foreign trade, let alone large-scale im port-export operations. Over 30,000 persons made their livings from trade, according to the 1897 census, b u t only a tenth o f them handled the m ovem ent o f grain products. The rest were m iddlem en, traders in other agricultural goods, o r involved in small retail and petty trade.16 Odessa also had a sizable and rapidly expanding industrial and m anufacturing base. By mid-ccntury m achine-construction plants, metalworks, iron foundries, shipyards, steampow ered granaries, a sugar refinery, tanneries, and chemical plants had been established. T he num ber o f factories, totaling several dozen at m id-century, shot up to over 100 by the late 1860s, and a workshop econom y centering primarily on the apparel and building trades also flourished as the d ty grew and required the services o f thousands o f w orkers.17 Factory production in the d ty expanded even m ore rapidly during the last tw o decades o f the nineteenth century. As Table 1 indicates, there was a 250 percent jum p in the num ber o f factories betw een 1883 and 1898, w ith m ost o f the grow th occurring in m etal processing, machine building, chemical produc­ tion, teapacking, and sugar refining. The annual value o f factory production m ore than doubled during the century’s last tw o decades, from approximately 26 m illion to 61 m illion rubles. This expansion marked Odessa’s contribution to the industrialization drive th at was occurring in the country as a whole during the last quarter o f the nineteenth century and gave the commercially oriented d ty a m ore balanced economy. M uch o f Odessa’s industrial expansion occurred in the outlying areas o f the d ty, w here industrialists took advantage o f large expanses o f undeveloped and unsettled land to establish new plants. D uring the 1880s and 1890s flour mills, granaries, warehouses, chemical plants, distilleries, wineries, breweries, m etal­ processing factories, and iron foundries were established in the M ikhailov and Petropavlov districts. Approximately 73 and 83 percent o f enterprises under factory inspection in 1898 in Petropavlov and Mikhailov, respectively, had been established after 1880. The num ber o f workers involved in the loading and unloading o f grain from freight trains and in warehouses in these tw o regions also increased dramatically during these years. O ne sign o f the grow ing signif­ icance o f Petropavlov and M ikhailov was die decision to erect grain storage elevators near the railway yards in Mikhailov, which was connected by a spur to dockside.18 lik e Petropavlov and M ikhailov, the districts o f Pcresyp and SlobodkaRomanovka also underw ent rapid grow th, particularly in the num ber o f found­ ries, m achine-construction and m etalworking enterprises, and chemical plants established there during the last quarter o f the nineteenth century. In Pcresyp, for exam ple, 84 percent o f enterprises registered by the Factory Inspectorate in

6

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

1898 had n o t been operating before 1880.19 Slobodka-Romanovka and Pcresyp were quintessential Russian factory districts, w ith an abundance o f industrial enterprises and overcrowded tenem ents housing primarily non-Jewish workers. Pcresyp occupied the territory along the seashore that extended northw ard from the p o rt, connected to the d ty center by a steep incline. Slobodka-Romanovka, situated southw est o f the heart o f Odessa, was located beyond a wide ravine th at divided the district from the rest o f Odessa. Described by one inhabitant as “drow ning in m ud,” Slobodka-Romanovka was the poorest district in the d ty and had the dubious distinction o f being the m ost dangerous, especially at night, when youth gangs roam ed the streets.20 O ne notable feature o f factory production in Odessa was the smallness o f enterprises in term s o f w ork force and o u tput w hen com pared w ith the m an­ ufacturing sector o f St. Petersburg. The typical Odessa factory in 1903 annually produced goods valued at less than 100,000 rubles. Slightly over 80 percent o f all enterprises surveyed by the Factory Inspectorate in that year employed fewer than 50 people, and 11 percent had work forces o f 50 to 100. Thirty-seven enterprises boasted m ore than 100 employees; o f these, only seven employed m ore than 500 workers. This low concentration o f labor per enterprise stands in sharp contrast to the situation in the capital, where one in three factory workers were employed in establishm ents w ith m ore than 1,000 employees.21 The commercial nature o f Odessa n o t unexpectedly shaped the city’s industrial sector. For the m ost part, m anufacturing either fulfilled die requirem ents o f the p o rt and shipping industry o r processed the wide variety o f raw materials that funnclcd into the dty. Domestically grow n w heat and raw sugar were turned into flour and refined sugar and then sold in both dom estic and foreign markets. Im ports o f jute (used to make rope and burlap sacks, items necessary for the shipping industry), cork, tea, iron, steel, and tin were usually processed for dom estic consum ption. In addition, a significant share o f the m anufacturing sector’s o utput satisfied other dem ands o f the local m arket, such as housing, d o th in g , and feeding Odessa’s burgeoning population. The factory sector in Odessa was heavily dom inated by a few branches o f production and, w ithin these sectors, by a small num ber o f enteiprises. The processing o f foodstuffs was the largest branch o f m anufacturing, accounting for tw o-thirds o f the ruble value o f all factory output in 1903 and employing dose to 7,000 workers. Available data for 1903 indicate th at tw o sugar refineries, eight teapacking firms, and tw enty-tw o flour mills accounted for alm ost 80 percent o f the ruble output o f this sector and slightly over half the value o f all factory production. Sugar production alone com prised nearly one-quarter o f m anufacturing o utput in ruble term s.22 M etal processing ranked second in term s o f production m easured in rubles, bu t employed m ore workers than the food processing sector. Unlike m etal and m achine-construction factories in St. Petersburg, where the average num ber o f workers per enterprise was close to 500, m etalworking plants in Odessa were relatively small. The typical m etal-processing firm in Odessa employed 63 per­ sons, less than half the average for such enterprises in the Em pire as a whole.22

7

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905 TABLE 2 Population Growth in Odessa Tear

Population

1795 1863 1873 1892 1897 1904

2,349 120,000 193,513 340,526 403,815 497,395

Source: The 1897 figure includes 400,909 perm anent residents as well as 2,906 persons temporarily present in Odessa on the day o f the census. It also includes 23,588 men and 1,058 women housed in the military garrison. The 1904 figure is taken from OOG za 1 9 0 4 p. 25. A nother source, published in 1914 but also based on 1904 inform ation, indicates that 499,555 people lived in Odessa in that year. Sec Garoda Rami v 1910 godu, p. 530. Patricia Herlihy (Odessa: A History,, p. 251) arrives at the somewhat higher figure o f 511,000. The differences may be due to the time o f year when the data were collected, imprecise m ethods o f counting, and different data bases reflecting w hether or not the city’s suburban residents were included in the census. Population figures for other years are taken fiom TsGlA, f. 23, op. 20, d. 1, p. 174; Smol’ianinov, Istoriia Odessy, p. 53; Putcroditel* po Odessa, pp. 24-25; Rezul*taty odnodnevnoi pertpisi, pt. 1, pp. 2 -3 (Table 1); Pertpis\ pp. iv and ix.

The processing o f animal products, especially leather, and the m anufacture o f soap and candles ranked third in term s o f ruble o u tput, closely followed by the production o f chemical products such as paint, lacquer, and gas. O ther significant sectors o f the factory econom y included the production o f cork products and the m anufacture o f rope and burlap sacks. T he making o f paper goods, cigarette papers in particular, and the printing trade also figured prominently. By the beginning o f the tw entieth century, then, the m anufacturing sector o f Odessa was increasing in im portance, though the grain trade still dom inated the economy. The city, as one contem porary observer o f econom ic conditions stated, had entered a “ noticeable turning p o in t. . . and had ceased living exclusively by the grain trade.”24 The factory sector, this observer noted, possessed a secure and vibrant future and w ould continue to expand, contributing to the further econom ic advance o f the dty. In sum , Odessa recorded impressive economic grow th during the nineteenth century, w ith trade and industrial statistics vividly illustrating its significance to the econom ic life o f Russia and the w orld.25

Population Growth in Odessa Odessa’s econom ic expansion in the nineteenth century was m atched by rapid population grow th, as tens o f thousands o f Russian subjects and foreigners sought to share in the opportunities offered by a dynamic economy. Odessa was only one o f many Russian cities th at experienced remarkable population grow th in the nineteenth century. The population o f St. Petersburg, for example, grew

8

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

from around 539,000 in 1864 to approximately 1.4 m illion by century’s end, and the population o f M oscow also rose dramatically, from about 339,000 in the m id-1860s to over 1.1 m illion by 1902. Similarly, the populations o f Riga and Kiev quadrupled during the same period. By the beginning o f the tw entieth century St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw were the only cities o f the Empire th at boasted m ore inhabitants than Odessa.36 As Table 2 shows, the grow th o f Odessa’s population was steady and rapid. Like m ost Russian dtics at the end o f the nineteenth century, Odessa was truly a m igrant d ty, serving as the adopted hom e for tens o f thousands o f people hailing from all parts o f the Em pire; at the end o f the century, some 56 percent o f the its inhabitants had n o t been born there.37 Workers accounted for m ost o f the m igration to Odessa, and unlike in other m ajor urban centers where suburbanization and residential segregation by dass were m ore developed, many o f them labored, lived, and relaxed in all parts o f the dty, rubbing shoulders w ith governm ent bureaucrats, professionals, wealthy landow ners, m erchants, and industrialists. Yet many o f the newly arrived m i­ grants tended to crowd into the poorer neighborhoods th at surrounded the w ealthier and better-endow ed districts o f the d ty center. They occupied the cheap tract housing th at sprang up around the new enterprises o f the d ty ’s industrial suburbs. The districts o f Peresyp, Mikhailov, Petropavlov, and Slobodka-Romanovka registered rates o f population grow th far in excess o f those experienced by the central districts o f the d ty and became the locus o f the lives o f the vast m ajority o f Odessa workers. In addition to perm anent settlers, an undeterm ined num ber o f people flocked to Odessa each year in search o f seasonal em ploym ent at the docks and con­ struction sites. Still others passed through Odessa as itinerants on their way to o ther cities, while those w ith tim e, leisure, and money frequently enjoyed rest cures at one o f the several aedaim ed spas for which Odessa was noted. M oreover, peasant m en and wom en from all over U kraine, hoping to find work as farm hands in the region, made the journey on foot to a local hiring m arket for agricultural labor that m et near Odessa every spring and summer. So many peasants attended the hiring m arket by the 1890s th at d ty offidals, fearing the spread o f syphilis and other contagious diseases, set up first-aid clinics and cafeterias and provided lodging in barracks.3* Economic opportunity was the prim ary m otivation for m igrating to Odessa. From the outset, foreign m erchants from Greece, Italy, Galicia, and other parts o f Europe established branches o f th d r brokerage houses in Odessa to handle the city’s foreign trade. These businessm en, using their family and business connections throughout W estern Europe and the M editerranean, helped trans­ form Odessa into a bustling city. G overnm ent policy tow ard the d ty was liberal, since offidals realized that its prosperity depended on the contributions o f fordgn subjects seeking a free and open atm osphere in which to pursue profits. The governm ent, seeking to reap the benefit o f com m erce, encouraged m er­ chants and traders o f all religions and nationalities to set up business in Odessa, even at the expense o f Russian m erchants.

Odessa on die Eve o f 1905

9

As Odessa began to grow into a budding m etropolis, tens o f thousands o f G reat Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Arm enians, Greeks, and Jews from Russia and Poland m igrated to the d ty to take advantage o f the opportunities offered by urban grow th. The boom econom y o f Odessa throughout m ost o f the nineteenth century served as a m agnet draw ing a diverse group o f m igrants hoping for a piece, however small, o f the econom ic pie. The d ty needed hired hands to work at dockside, draymen and porters to bring grain arriving from the countryside to the docks, clerks to handle the paperwork, and brokers to procure grain from peasant producers and then sell it to one o f the large export firms. Still others were needed to provide the variety o f goods and services required by an expanding d ty that lacked a native labor force. The appearance o f a solid m anufacturing base in the late nineteenth century also drew m igrants to Odessa in search o f factory work. This m igration in turn fueled further econom ic grow th, since the local econom y now had to support and sustain the d ty ’s grow ing population. As knowledge o f its "econom ic miracle” spread throughout Russia and the rest o f Europe, Odessa lured even m ore people. They perceived life in the d ty as a chance to escape poverty and create new lives for themselves and their families. I. Fedorov, w riting in the late 1860s, likened Odessa to California, another frontier territory where jobs abounded and settlers could give life another try.29 The attraction o f Odessa was particularly powerful for peasants from those provinces o f the Russian interior th at were experiendng a dem o­ graphic explosion coupled w ith severe land shortages and agricultural stagnation. This was espedally true in post-Em andpation Russia, when barriers to peasant m igration were weakened and peasants could m ore easily obtain permission to seek em ploym ent outside the village. Supplem enting those peasants w ho had fled to southern Russia as serf runaways, army deserters, and drifters in the pre -Em andpation era, these new im m igrants—victims o f land hunger, rural overpopulation, and deteriorating conditions in the countryside—sought refuge in Odessa. As S. S. Iushkcvich writes in Prolog: Povtst3(Prologue: A Tale), peasant m igrants were trying to forget the misery o f village life. As they journeyed to O dessa, they did n o t m ention the lives they were leaving behind so as n o t to m ar the d ty ’s image as a place where there are no "troubles, fear, and suffer­ ing.”30 Jews from the w estern and northw estern regions o f the Pale o f Settlem ent and from those areas o f Poland under A ustrian dom ination were also enticed by the prom ise o f Odessa. As problem s o f overpopulation, econom ic com peti­ tion, and im poverishm ent reached crisis proportions in the shtetis o f the Pale, the next best (and cheaper) alternative to em igration to W estern Europe o r the U nited States was resettlem ent in Odessa. As one contem porary observer noted: " I f a Jew from the Pale o f Settlem ent doesn’t dream about America or Palestine, then you know he’ll be in Odessa.”31 Since Odessa was located w ithin the Pale, Jews did n o t require spedal permission to move there and, due to spedal considerations, they were generally exem pted from the onerous and discrimina­ tory residency legislation affecting Russian Jewry. For example, a maximum

10

T he R evolution of

1905 in O dessa

length o f stay was never im posed upon Odessa Jews.32 Odessa, unlike m ost o ther cities in Russia, countenanced the presence o f a sizable Jewish com m unity and did n o t hinder its econom ic activities. It is n o t surprising that thousands o f Russian and Polish Jews took advantage o f the opportunity to leave the stifling atm osphere o f the established regions o f Jewish settlem ent for Odessa, where the freshness and dynamism o f the city inspired hope and optim ism . M any Jewish m igrants did n o t find it difficult to m eet the challenges o f life in a large dty, as Russian Jews in general had long engaged in com m erce and petty trade o r made their livings as tailors and shoemakers, only tw o o f many pursuits th at a grow ing d ty could support. The expulsion o f Jews from many o f the tow ns and d ties o f the western borderlands in the 1880s and 1890s, as well as the famine o f 1891-1892, accelerated the flow o f Jews to Odessa. I t was estim ated in 1892 th at only 38 percent o f the d ty ’s Jews had been bom in Odessa.33 For some Russian Jews, however, the appeal o f Odessa lay m ore in the d ty ’s psychological and intellectual attraction than in the hope for econom ic better­ m ent. Unlike regions w ith long-established Jewish com m unities, Odessa offered an environm ent in which the traditional values and norm s o f Jewish sodety and culture enjoyed less influence. The newness o f the Jewish com m unity in Odessa m eant that the restraints and sanctions imposed by older com m unities were d th e r lacking o r severely attenuated. The well-entrenched Jewish communal authority, which based its pow er and authority on a rabbinic heritage and was generally unwilling to accommodate the dem ands and pressures generated by m ore inti­ mate contact w ith the gentile w orld, was weak if not entirely absent in Odessa. O ne indication o f communal weakness was the num erous inddents o f Jewish youths deliberately snubbing their m ore religiously m inded brethren by holding parties on Yom Kippur w ithout fear o f retribution from the Jewish elders. Odessa therefore provided Jews with a setting in which they could engage in new and different intellectual, cultural, and economic pursuits m ore freely than in areas o f traditional Jewish settlem ent. By 1900 Odessa was hom e to acculturatcd Jews; a somewhat smaller proportion o f Odessa Jews (89.5 percent) reported Yiddish as their m other tongue than those in the rest o f Russia (97 percent).34 This “frontier” atm osphere contributed to the rise o f Odessa in the course o f the nineteenth century as a m ajor center o f the H askalah (Jewish Enlighten­ m ent). The d ty could boast that it was a center o f Yiddish and H ebrew literature and the hom e o f such Jewish luminaries as Simon D ubnow, Leon Pinsker, Max Lilicnblum , and M endele M ocher Seforim. M oreover, the host sodety in Odessa, perhaps m ore than anywhere else in the Pale, was willing to tolerate the econom ic and political participation o f Jews. Jews played a vigorous role in m unidpal affairs during the nineteenth century, especially after m id-century when substan­ tial local initiative devolved upon Russian m unidpalities due to the reform legislation o f the 1860s and 1870s. Jews served as city councillors, and O sip Rabinovich, a journalist and publisher o f R azsvet (D awn), the first Jewish newspaper in Russian, was appointed in 1861 to a com m ittee established to draw up a new d ty charter.3S

11

Odea0 oh the Eve o f 1905 TABLE 3 Nationality in Odessa Based on Language, 1897 N ationality

Numbers

Percent

Russian Jew (by frith) Ukrainian Pole German Greek Other Slavs Tatar Armenian French Italian Remaining Total

183,665 139,984 37,925 17,395 10,248 5,086 2,761 1,437 1,401 1,137 717 2,059 403,815

45.5 34.7 9.4 4.3 2.5 1.3 .7 .4 .4 .3 .2 .5 100.22 (due to rounding)

Source: P trtp if, pp. vi-vii and 34-37 (Tables 11-13). The figures refer to the administrative municipality ( odcakot¿nuionocM ’stvo) that included the city o f Odessa and surrounding suburbs known collectively as Dal’nits. Even though the suburbs possessed a more rural flavor than the dty proper, I have chosen to treat the gradonachal’stvo in its entirety because the suburbs were under the same administrative jurisdiction and were inextricably linked to the economy o f Odessa as both supplier o f food and labor and consum er o f goods and services.

The following story, recounted by the Jewish w riter A. Chivonibar (A. Rabin­ ovich), highlights the appeal o f Odessa. “The Bootblack” describes the experi­ ences o f a Jewish youth w ho left his shted in Kiev province after hearing o f the success o f a neighbor’s son in Odessa. The neighbor’s son, w ho arrived penniless and alone in Odessa, m anaged to save 100 rubles by selling matches and polishing shoes and soon m arried his landlord’s daughter. H e then joined his father-in-law in opening up a profitable bagel shop and bakery. U pon hearing this success story, the shted youth followed in his neighbor’s footsteps to Odessa, where he to o hoped to find a wife and strike it rich. U nfortunately, when he told this story to Rabinovich, he was still eking out a pitiful living polishing shoes and had litde hope for a better life.36 True o r n o t, this story stands as a tribute to the reputation o f Odessa as a place to make money. Stories such as these lured thousands o f poor Jews, w ho saw the d ty as a refuge from the deteriorating conditions o f village and shted life. The hope o f rising from penury to relative wealth—which often m eant the simple dream o f ow ning a small shop—rem ained a potent force in the popular im agination. In his autobiography From the Fair, Sholom Aleichem records a childhood conversation in which a friend, boasting o f his family’s im pending move from the shted to Odessa, tells him: “you’d wish you and I both had the gold that rolls around there during the course o f a day.” W hen Aleichem asks the friend w hat his father will do there, the friend responds: “My father will

12

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

have granaries full o f w h e a t. . . . My hither will have an office w ith clerks. And money—m oney will flow into our pockets by the sackful. Odessa? Are you kidding?”37 The image o f Odessa as a Russian El D orado did n o t die easily, even when changing econom ic conditions at the tu rn o f the century (discussed below) turned the hopes o f many newcomers into pipe dreams. Settlem ent in Odessa in the nineteenth century did n o t automatically lead to im provem ents in the lives o f the settlers. M any arrived poor and rem ained poor; for som e, conditions even deteriorated. After the turn o f the century, circumstances w orsened, in­ creasing the likelihood that m igrants to Odessa w ould face a life o f unrelieved unem ploym ent, poverty, and hunger. As A. I. Svirskii w rote on the eve o f 1905, “Odessa is no t a paradise----- The army o f hungry is grow ing and spreading.”38 Population grow th was outstripping the capacity o f the city's econom y to provide work for everyone and, as one observer noted in 1900, “The tim e when Odessa did n o t have enough workers has already passed.” As early as the 1880s Odessa officials, in an effort to stem the influx o f m igrants, set up checkpoints on roads leading to the city; soldiers w ould inspect travelers’ docum ents and n o t allow groups o f m ore than thirty to go on.39 H opeful im m igrants nonetheless continued to flock to Odessa. The city governor reported in 1903 th at approximately 10,000 m igrants from all over the Russian Em pire perm anently settled in Odessa each year.40 Perhaps they chose to ignore the gloom y stories and reports o r perhaps they were simply ignorant o f them . M any may even have reasoned th at life in Odessa could be no worse than that which they were prepared to leave behind. Even during slack periods o f commercial activity and years o f recession, many workers decided n ot to return to their native villages and tow ns, preferring to stick it o u t and w eather hardship in Odessa. Their decision to remain indicates a preference for life in the city over that in rural and small-town Russia. Newcomers now considered their new hom e “Odessa-M ama.” Experience w ould prove her to be a harsh and stem m other.

Nationality in Odessa To a much larger extent than either the cities o f St. Petersburg o r Moscow, Odessa attracted a population that was heterogeneous in its ethnic and national com position. According to the 1897 census, the city was hom e to persons who spoke some fifty-five languages and hailed from over thirty countries, including m ost European and some N ear Eastern nations, the U nited States, C hina, and Japan. Nearly 20,000 persons, o r 4.8 percent o f O dessa's population in 1897, were subjects o f foreign governm ents.41 As Table 3 shows, G reat Russians com prised the largest national group living in Odessa. T ogether w ith other Slavic-speaking peoples such as Ukrainians, W hite Russians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Bulgare, they accounted for

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

13

about 60 percent o f O dessa's population, while believers in Russian O rthodoxy com prised 56 percent (225,869) o f the city's population. T hough significant, the Slavic population in Odessa comprised a smaller proportion o f the total population than in M oscow and St. Petersburg, w here, respectively, nearly all and alm ost nine-tenths o f the residents reported speaking a Slavic language as their m other tongue.42 It is w orth noting that the actual num ber o f Ukrainians may have been masked by the practice o f some non-Russians o f claiming Russian as their native language in an effort to assimilate. Jews were the second m ajor group in Odessa, constituting nearly 35 percent o f the population. This was a significant increase from the approximately 14,000 Jews (14 percent o f the d ty total) living in Odessa in 1858.43 My figures refer to those o f Jewish faith rather than those recorded as speaking Yiddish as their daily language. Since som e 14,568 Jews reported Russian as their language o f first choice, the figure for religion provides a m ore accurate and reliable reck­ oning o f the total num ber o f Jews. For those Jews w ho reported Russian as their main language, all we can conclude is th at they were m ore acculturated or assimilated (o r w anted to be seen as such) than those w ho continued to rely on Yiddish. It is difficult to determ ine w hether their responses reflected a shift in language use from Yiddish to Russian o r the spread o f bilingualism. The gov­ ernm ent nonetheless considered them Jewish by nationality and stam ped “Jew” on their passports. In addition to Slavs and Jews, other national groups in Odessa, as identified by native tongue, accounted for just under 6 percent o f the population in 1897. Native-speaking Greeks, w ho dom inated m uch o f the city’s econom y during the first half-century o f Odessa’s existence and num bered some 11,500 in 1816, accounted for 5,086 residents by the end o f the century.44 In all, the proportion o f citizens from European states living in Odessa had dropped from nearly three-quarters o f the population in 1819 to somewhere between 3 and 4 percent by century's end.45 Thus, Odessa after its first century o f existence had become m uch m ore Russian and Jewish than it had been at its inception. The early presence o f a large foreign com m unity gave Odessa a sophisticated flavor th at other Russian cities, w ith the exception o f St. Petersburg and some o f the Baltic seaports, lacked. From its early days, Odessa possessed the cultural and intellectual atm osphere o f a m ajor cosm opolitan center. The cultural influ­ ence o f Germ an, Italian, Greek, French, English, and Swiss residents and visitors perm eated Odessa through the im port o f luxury item s, the opening o f restau­ rants and hotels th at duplicated the atm osphere o f the C ontinent, and even the hiring o f French governesses by both Russians and West European residents in Odessa. O ther indications o f foreign influence were street signs w ritten in both Italian and Russian in the 1820s and the publication in French o f the city’s first newspaper. By contrast, the first Russian-language newspapers quickly folded for lack o f dem and.46 The first municipal public library in the Russian Empire had opened in Odessa in 1830, and theater, m usic, and opera enhanced the city's reputation as a

14

T he Revolution of 1905 in O dessa

cultural oasis. A perusal o f the 1900 edition o f a guidebook to Odessa reveals the existence o f some tw o dozen public and private libraries and reading room s, three m useum s, several theaters (including a circus), public auditorium s, a university, and nearly 200 public and private schools. Civic life also thrived in the form o f seventy-five charitable organizations and social clubs th at attracted lovers o f dram a, literature, sports, yachting, nature, and cycling.47 In addition, the d ty was a m ajor resort center th at drew thousands o f vacationers to the mineral baths o f several spas found along nearby estuaries. The M unicipal Theater presented opera and dram a; this lavish and ornate building rivaled the beauty o f opera houses o n the C ontinent. The d ty center, w ith its broad boulevards, parks, and rows o f buildings designed in the neoclassical style, rem inded the visitor to Odessa o f W estern Europe and testified to the efforts o f the d ty fathers and leading citizens to build a d ty w orthy o f praise and equal in grandeur to any European dty. Resembling the architectural style and beauty o f St. Petersburg and affectionately called by some “the Second Petersburg,** “ Little Paris,” “the Southern Beauty,” and “the Southern Palmyra,” Odessa was described by one visitor as “a w onderful d t y . . . . Odessa, like a fairytale beauty, lounges and lolls about by the warm sea and it seems th at there is no m ore fortunate d ty in the entire Empire.**48 The cosmopolitan flavor o f Odessa was also enhanced by the reladvdy small proportion o f peasants living in the dty. Despite the steady influx o f peasants into Odessa, the influence o f rural Russia was more m uted here than in other urban centers for reasons that are no t altogether dear. Peasant culture did n o t sm other the elements o f a distinctly urban culture and sodety in Odessa. This state o f affairs contrasts sharply w ith other m ajor urban centers in Russia, where traditional peasant values and custom s dom inated the urban scene to a far greater extent. Moscow, for example, was known as “the big village” by virtue o f its peasant population. In 1897, peasants (based on soslovte, o r offidal cstate/corporate standing) comprised only 27 percent o f Odessa’s population, a proportion far smaller than in St. Petersburg o r Moscow.49 In addition, almost three-fifths (approximately 300,000) o f the dty*$ residents bdonged to the urban estate or meshchanstvo, with Jews comprising dose to half o f this number. While catego­ rization by soslovie is a slippery venture and n o t a dear-cut indicator o f sodal identity o r even place o f residence, the large presence o f meshchane suggests that m ost o f Odessa’s inhabitants were familiar with d ty life. This state o f affairs attenuated the impact o f peasant Russia on Odessa and reduced the im portance o f ties with the countryside, even am ong non-Jews. M oreover, o f the tens o f thousands o f peasants and meshchane who came to Odessa, many were no doubt attracted by Odessa’s reputation as a progressive and open dty. They were prepared to jettison much o f the cultural baggage that they arrived with and were determ ined to fit in with the m ore cosm opolitan world awaiting them .50 The large num ber o f Jews residing in Odessa reduced even further whatever im pact the peasant clem ent may have had. Jews from small shteds in the heart o f the Pale o f Settlem ent were probably overwhelmed by their initial experience in a cosm opolitan center like Odessa, but it is equally likely th at life in Odessa

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

15

had less o f a disorienting im pact upon Jewish m igrants than upon peasants from the interior. Even though many shtetls resem bled peasant villages in term s o f m aterial deprivation and poverty, the Jews’ greater contact w ith urban Russia, as well as their m ore urban occupational patterns, probably made the move to a d ty less traum atic for them than for a Russian o r Ukrainian peasant. They were better prepared than the typical peasant psychologically, culturally, and sociologically for life in the big dty.

Ethnic Relations in Odessa Given the m ultinational com position o f Odessa’s population, it is surprising th at for many years the traditional suspidon o f Russians tow ard non-Russians was m ore m uted and less visible than in other regions o f Russia w ith ethnically mixed populations. Several factors rooted in the history o f Odessa account for this state o f affairs. As we have seen, Odessa was a relatively new city where official policy encouraged the settlem ent o f non-Russians. Indeed, the d ty ’s first tw o d ty governors, the Duc de Richelieu and Alexandre de Langeron, were French subjects whose zeal and energy as adm inistrators during the first quarter o f the nineteenth century contributed to the flourishing o f Odessa. M oreover, Greeks, Italians, and Jews helped set the tem po o f commercial and finandal life and assumed active roles in cultural and political affairs. Odessa was an enlight­ ened d ty th at tolerated diversity and innovation and welcomed persons o f all nationalities w ho could contribute to its developm ent. U nfortunately, offidal polides dashed w ith popular prejudices and a Judeophobia prevalent am ong many gentile Odessans. The veneer o f acceptance and toleration o f Jews was thin, and O dessa's Jews, like Jews elsewhere in Russia, were n o strangers to anti-Jewish animus, sometimes felling victim to anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Semitism generally rem ained subm erged, but it did assume ugly forms several tim es in the nineteenth century. Serious riots in which Jews were killed and w ounded and Jewish houses and businesses suffered substantial damage occurred in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, and 1900. A part from these dram atic outbursts, anti-Jewish sentim ent am ong O dessa's non-Jewish population mani­ fested itself in other ways. Gangs o f Jewish and gentile youths offen engaged in bloody brawls, and every year at Eastertime rum ors o f an im pending pogrom would circulate through the city’s Jewish community, giving rise to anxiety and fear.51 M any residents feared th at Russian-Jewish tensions could explode in a m atter o f hours given the right com bination o f factors. Jews were often scapegoated for such problem s as unem ploym ent and o ther econom ic difficulties, and orga­ nizers o f labor dem onstrations and strikes had to allay fears am ong the general public th at labor unrest m ight develop into anti-Jewish pogrom s. They exhorted gentile workers n o t to direct their anger at Jews, but to present a united front o f Jews and Russians against employers. The fear that work stoppages would degenerate into anti-Sem itic violence dam pened labor militance. For example,

16

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

the 1903 May Day rally never m aterialized because many potential participants, Jews and Russians alike, had the m em ory o f the recent Kishinev pogrom fresh in their m inds and feared th at a m arch through Odessa w ould spark a similar upheaval. A group o f Jewish shopkeepers and property owners, upset by workers gathering in a field to celebrate May Day, inform ed the police, w ho arrested some 30 workers.52 In early 1905, one Russian w orker, apparently in response to fear th at a pogrom was in the m aking, assured the Odessa Jewish com m unity th at Russian workers were n o t “wild animals ready to unleash a pogrom .” H e appealed to Russian workers to recognize as “ brothers” other workers “w hether they be Jew, Pole, G reek, o r G erm an” in order to preserve social calm.53 A nother w orker also stated at this tim e that the “passions” o f Russians were aroused during tim es o f social and econom ic hardship, which stirred up “national hatreds.”54 Employers with ethnically mixed labor forces also understood that Jewish-gentile hostilities could be used to their advantage and sometimes en­ couraged Russian workers to direct their anger a t Jewish coworkers.55 Anti-Semitism in Odessa was rooted n o t only in socio-econom ic, political, and cultural realities, b u t also in the perceptions and feelings, m ore often than n o t irrational and exaggerated, o f gentiles who viewed Odessa Jewry as a danger to the well-being o f society. Such was the case in the 1821 pogrom , when Greeks attacked Jews w ho were accused o f aiding the Turks in the killing o f the Greek patriarch o f C onstantinople. A fter m id-century, religious fanaticism and hatred som etim es mixed w ith social and econom ic factors to heighten anti-Jewish sentim ents. The increasing prom inence o f Jews in the commercial life o f Odessa, particularly their success in the grain trade, played no small role in fueling anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence. In a society that considered agricultural pursuits productive and commerce exploitative, it is no t surprising that Jews, w ho were heavily involved in trade as m iddlem en and brokers, were regarded as parasitic, unproductive members o f society w ho made their livings at the expense o f non-Jews. U ntil the Crim ean War, Greeks controlled the export o f grain from Odessa while Jews dom inated the role o f m iddlem an. H ostilities disrupted trade routes, however, and forced English im porters o f Russian grain to tu rn to American and Canadian producers. Some G reek commercial houses could n o t absorb their losses and w ent bankrupt. M any others, although n o t forced into bank­ ruptcy, realized that the entry o f N orth American grain o n to the international m arket w ould deflate prices and reduce profit margins. These businessm en, w ho had branches throughout the w orld, decided to close their Odessa offices in order to pursue o ther ventures th at prom ised greater profits. Jewish m er­ chants and traders, accustom ed to operating at sm aller profit m argins, filled the vacuum caused by the departure o f Greek m erchants and assumed prom ­ inent positions in the im port-export trade. By the late 1870s, firms ow ned by Jews com prised slightly over a third o f establishm ents engaged in the export business in Odessa. These com panies controlled 56 percent o f the export trade in grain, including approxim ately 70 percent o f the trade in flour. Overall, Jews at this tim e controlled slightly over half the export trade. Jewish dom ination

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

17

o f the grain trade continued to expand during the next several decades; by 1910 Jewish firms handled nearly 9 0 percent o f the export trade in grain products.56 Greek residents started the pogrom s o f 1859 and 1871. The eclipse o f the G reek com m unity and the tendency o f Jewish m erchants, like other ethnic and religious com m unities in the city, to give preference in em ploym ent to coreli­ gionists had forced many Greeks into straitened econom ic circumstances. Such actions particularly angered those Greeks, especially sailors and dockworkers, w ho had been displaced by Jewish workers. The flames o f anti-Semitism were further fanned by a false accusation o f Jewish ritual m urder in 1859 and unfounded rum ours that Jews desecrated the Greek O rthodox C hurch and cem etery in 1871. Greeks were no t the only residents o f Odessa w ho perceived Jews as a threat. Russian resentm ent and hostility tow ard Jews came to the fore in the pogrom o f 1871, as Russians joined Greeks in attacks against Jews. Thereafter, Russians (and to a lesser extent Ukrainians) filled the ranks o f pogrom ists in 1 8 8 1 ,1 9 0 0 , and as we shall see 1905. The replacem ent o f Greeks by Russians as pogrom ists reflects the declining Greek presence in Odessa and highlights the tension that was grow ing betw een Russians and Jews in the city. A ccording to som e Russian residents, the tw in notions o f exploitation by and com petition w ith Jews figured prom inently in the outbreak o f the 1871 pogrom . Some com plained th at “Jews exploit us.” O thers, especially the unem ployed, blamed increased Jewish settlem ent in Odessa for reduced em ploym ent oppor­ tunities and lower wages. In 1871 a Russian cabdriver, referring to the Jews’ practice o f lending m oney to Jewish im m igrants to enable them to rent o r buy a horse and cab, complained: “Several years ago there was one Jewish cabdriver for every 100 Russian cabdrivers, b u t since then rich Jews have given m oney to the poor Jews, so that there is now a countless m ultitude o f Jewish cabdrivers.”57 In this account, Jewish com petition and the practice o f Jews sticking together to help each other contributed to a feeling o f oppression am ong some Russian w orkers, reinforcing the popular image o f Russian Jewry as an alien, parasitic community. The grow ing visibility o f Jews enhanced this predisposition o f Russians to blame Jews for their difficulties, lik e elsewhere in Russia and W estern Europe, many non-Jews in Odessa perceived Jews as possessing an inordinate am ount o f w ealth, power, and influence. The steady grow th o f the city’s Jewish popu­ lation during the nineteenth century indicated to some gentiles the seriousness o f the Jewish “threat.” In addition to their commercial activities, some Jews in Odessa by the end o f the century also occupied prom inent positions in m anu­ facturing, banking, and the retail sector, thereby leading to Jewish dom ination o f certain sectors o f the economy. In 1910, Jews ow ned slightly over half the large stores, trading firms, and small shops, and thirteen o f the eighteen banks operating in Odessa had Jewish board members and directors. They also com ­ prised about half the members o f Odessa’s three m erchant guilds at the turn o f the century, up from 38 percent in the m id-1880s. Jews virtually m onopolized

18

T he Revolution of 1905 in O dessa

the production o f starch, refined sugar, tin goods, chemicals, and wallpaper, and they com peted with Russian and foreign entrepreneurs in the making o f flour, cigarettes, beer, w ine, leather, cork, and iron products. A lthough Jews ow ned in 1887 approximately 35 percent o f the factories surveyed, these firms produced 57 percent o f the toed factory o utput (in rubles) for th at year.58 And yet, despite the conspicuous success o f many Jews, the com m on percep­ tion that the grow ing Jewish presence threatened to result in the total Jewish dom ination o f Odessa had little basis in reality and was an unfair representation o f Odessa Jew ry's role in local life. To be sure, Jews were the festest grow ing ethnic and national group in the city: the proportion o f Jews in the city's population had risen from about a quarter to slightly over a third during the last quarter o f the century, while at the same tim e the proportion o f O rthodox residents dropped from 65 to 56 percent. B ut the rate o f grow th leveled out after 1897, w ith the percentage o f Jews actually dropping som ew hat by the eve o f 1905. According to data assembled by the city governor, the num ber o f Jews residing in Odessa in 1904 was 141,601 (approximately 28 percent o f the city's total population), w ith the proportion o f Russian O rthodox residents rem aining constant. The reasons for this relative decline o f Jews since 1897 are difficult to ascertain (and may be due to imprecise census-taking, since other studies show th at the percentage o f Jews in Odessa was slightly above 30 percent in 1904),59 b u t there is no question th at non-Jews continued to hold their own in the econom ic sphere and were in no danger o f being outnum bered, let alone elim inated, by Jews. O n the eve o f 1905, Odessa was flu from being a city whose society, politics, and econom y were dom inated by Jews. According to the 1897 census, thousands o f Russians and Ukrainians engaged in commercial activities o f some sort, especially the m arketing o f agricultural products, and com prised approximately a third o f the total num ber o f individuals listed as earning livings from trade. O n the eve o f 1905, m oreover, about h alf the licenses granting permission to engage in commercial and industrial activities were given to non-Jews, and in 1910 non-Jews ow ned slightly under half the large stores and trading firms and 4 4 percent o f small shops in the dty. Forty percent o f m anufacturing enterprises in 1887 were ow ned by foreigners, w ith Russians ow ning another 25 percent; according to 1910 data, Jews owned 43 percent o f enterprises under fectory inspection. These firms tended to employ Russians, w ho therefore could not claim that Jews were taking jobs from them . But resentm ent tow ard their bosses could nonetheless assume anti-Jewish tones, given the prom inence o f Jews as employers. Lastly, Jews in 1910 ow ned only 17 percent o f real estate parcels in the dty, dow n from 20 percent a decade earlier.60 Jews also did not belong to die the Idsured propertied class, nor could they translate their wealth into political influence and power. D espite the presence o f an estim ated eighteen Jewish millionaires in Odessa in 1900, only a negligible num ber lived from investm ents in land, stocks, and bonds, and even fewer—71 in a staff o f 3,449—worked for the Imperial governm ent, the judidary, o r the municipal adm inistration.61 This was due in part to the 1892 m unidpal reform ,

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

19

w hich made it m ore difficult for Jews to occupy governm ent posts and disen­ franchised Odessa Jewry. From 1870 until 1892, when the central governm ent lim ited the num ber o f Jewish representatives to 10 percent o f the d ty council’s full m em bership, Jews had enjoyed the same electoral rights as non-Jcwish residents o f Odessa. The 1892 statute, however, deprived Jews o f the right to elect representatives to the d ty council, assigning the responsibility for appoint­ ing six Jewish councillors to a spedal office for m unidpal affairs.62 In contrast to the popular perception th at Jews enjoyed a stranglehold on O dessa, the vast m ajority o f them eked o u t m eager livings as shopkeepers, second-hand dealers, salesderks, petty traders, dom estic servants, day laborers, workshop employers, and factory hands. Poverty was a way o f life for m ost Jews in O dessa, as it was for m ost non-Jcwish residents. In his study o f Jewish poverty in Odessa at the tu rn o f the century, I. Brodovskii estim ated that nearly 50,000 Jews were destitute and another 30,000 poverty-stricken. In 1905, nearly 80,000 Jews requested financial assistance from Jewish welfare organizations in order to buy Passover m atzo, a telling sign that well over half the Jews in Odessa experienced difficulties making ends m eet.63 Jews were by no means the only members o f the underprivileged, urban lower classes. The overwhelm ing m ajority o f employed Russians, for example, worked as servants, o r as day and unskilled laborers at dockside, railway depots, granaries, and construction sites, o r in factories and workshops. M any o f them carted and hauled goods around the dty, and nearly 12,000 were quartered in the military garrison. O ther Slavic-speaking peoples also contributed members to the grow ­ ing work force. The Ukrainians w ho settled in Odessa were for the m ost part poor unm arried males seeking to escape lives o f rural poverty. Like many Russians in Odessa, they w orked as unskilled laborers and servants o r were army con­ scripts. Some Ukrainians even engaged in agricultural pursuits in the outlying suburbs o f the city. Similarly, the m ajority o f Polish inhabitants were d th e r em ployed as unskilled laborers o r stationed as soldiers. By 1900 many Greeks in Odessa, despire the prom inence o f Greek m erchants in the econom y earlier in the century, worked as day laborers at dockside and in food and animal processing plants.64 A t the o th er end o f the occupational ladder, Russians occupied those rungs th at bestow ed status, prestige, and authority and reflected wealth and power. They dom inated the administrative and judicial posts in the city governm ent and, along w ith foreigners, owned a m ajority o f factories by the 1890s. Russians also accounted for the m ajority o f those w ho supported themselves from stocks, savings, and land, the latter being one indicator o f the extent to w hich Russian nobles engaged in land speculation in southern Russia. The m agnitude o f poverty and the low socio-econom ic status o f the majority o f Odessans graphically illustrates th at no simple equation o f ethnicity and class existed in the m ultinational Russian Empire. Cleavages o f class, pow er, and status in Odessa were not neatly drawn along ethnic o r religious lines, as they tended to be in cities such as Baku and Tiflis.65 Class divisions and disparities in political and econom ic pow er cut across ethnic lines in Odessa; at tim es ethnicity rein­

20

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

forced class barriers b u t, as we shall see, it could also transcend divisions o f status, power, and m oney and pit non-Jew against Jew.

Economic Rivalry and the Impact of War Beneath the vitality o f Odessa lay problem s th at adversely affected the tow n’s social and econom ic well-being. D espite its econom ic dynamism throughout the nineteenth century, both short-term events and long-range trends were affecting the econom ic health o f Odessa and hindering industrial and commercial prospects on the eve o f 1905. The city's econom y faltered during the first half-decade o f the tw entieth century as it fell victim to fluctuations and uncer­ tainties caused by bad harvests, recession, econom ic com petition, and war. These developm ents in turn interacted w ith dem ographic trends to worsen m aterial conditions for the average Odessa worker. Unem ploym ent became a serious problem after 1900, contributing to the em ergence o f a perm anent core o f impoverished and unem ployed workers. O ne problem confronting Odessa was the fact th at the grain trade, the mainstay o f the city’s economy, had begun to contract by the end o f the century. W hile Odessa rem ained the m ajor p o rt in southern Russia during the pre-1905 period, it increasingly found itself at a com petitive disadvantage w ith other ports in the region, specifically Nikolaev, K herson, and Rostov-on-D on. Grain exports from Odessa began to drop after the record-setting year o f 1894, and the city's share o f the grain trade in the decade o r so before 1905 decreased relative to other ports in the region, a trend exacerbated by crop failures and econom ic recession at the turn o f the century. Less grain arrived in Odessa by railroad, both in absolute w eight and in the relative share o f the total am ount shipped to the city, and the appearance in nearby cities o f m ore m odem , efficient, and better-equipped harbors, capable o f handling a greater volume o f trade at lower cost, confounded local grain m erchants. D uring periods o f peak activity, loading berths in Nikolaev, Kherson, and R ostov-on-D on were no t as congested as in Odessa; ships did not have to wait several weeks, as they often did in Odessa, before receiving permission to enter the harbor. The cost o f shipping grain to Odessa from the hinterland increased relative to other ports in southern Russia and in the Baltic due to differential railway tariffs that favored shipm ent o f grain to the northern ports o f the Em pire and to commercial centers located on the eastern shores o f the Black and Azov Seas, which were now closer than Odessa to new centers o f grain production. The lack o f direct rail connection between Odessa and the interior also h u rt local grain m erchants, as did the declining role played by southern Russia in supplying w heat and other grains for the w orld m arket.66 Odessa was paying the price for its role as a pioneering commercial center and hub o f the grain trade. Just as those countries that em barked upon the path o f industrialization after England benefited from the transfer and application o f m ore advanced technology and production processes th at decades o f industri­

O des» on the Eve o f 1905

21

alism afforded, so to o did the newer p o rt cities o f southern Russia enter the grain trade w ith the m ost m odem facilities o f the day. D espite efforts to deepen the harbor and outfit the p o rt w ith the m ost up-to-date equipm ent and facilities, Odessa still lagged behind ports o f neighboring cities in term s o f efficiency and capacity. It simply lacked die facilities to handle a grow ing am ount o f traffic. Some grain may have been transferred into the holds o f ships by means o f conveyor belts, but the sad tru th was that m ost goods still had to be loaded o r unloaded by hand. The elevated railway running from the main rail depot in M ikhailov facilitated the m ovem ent o f goods to dockside, b u t even this devel­ opm ent did no t change the fact th at ox-drawn carts carried m ost grain to die harbor, a distance o f some tw o miles. O ne observer, w riting about O dessa's threatened status as Russia’s preem inent p o rt, suggested th at its share o f exports w ould increase if the harbor was expanded and m odernized and if m ore rail lines were erected between the p o rt and the main trunk o f the South West Railroad.67 But after the turn o f the century the repair and further m odernization o f p o rt facilities floundered due to the lack o f funds. The d ty fathers now found themselves m anaging a budget w ith large deficits and were hard put to allocate funds to renovate the harbor. Custom s and tax receipts could no longer cover such expenditures and the central governm ent refused urgent requests for the necessary funds.68 A nother shortcom ing was die still overwhelm ing im portance o f commerce in the econom ic life and welfare o f the dty. Despite the appearance o f a vibrant m anufacturing sector, the fact that many m ajor industrial processes were linked to the life o f the p o rt did n o t bode well for the economy. As we have seen, industry in Odessa was w eighted in favor o f food processing such as sugar refining, teapacking, and flour production. These were processes th at either depended upon im ports for raw m aterials, as in the case o f tea packing, exported m uch o f the finished product, as in the case o f sugar refining, o r required a supply o f domestically grow n w heat, as in the case o f flour. These industries were therefore particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in m arket conditions and disruptions in commerce. The im pact o f disrupted trade routes due to war and the effects o f a bad harvest were immediately felt by O dessa's m anufacturers, w ho cu t back production and laid o ff workers. Econom ic conditions continued to deteriorate as 1905 approached. Like other cities in Russia, Odessa in 1903 had begun to recover from the nationw ide recession that had begun around 1900, but the recovery was shortlived due to a bad harvest in 1904 and, m ore im portantly, the untim ely outbreak o f hostilities betw een Russia and Japan in January 1904. City governor Dm itrii B. N eidhardt, brother-in-law o f future prim e m inister Petr Stolypin, noted that the outbreak o f war com pounded the city’s econom ic woes because it disrupted commerce between Odessa and the Russian Far East, which was a lucrative m arket for m anufactured goods and foodstuffs funnelled through Odessa.69 Trade w ith the Far East and Siberia was no t insubstantial; indeed, Odessa dom inated Russian trade w ith P ort A rthur and Vladivostok by century’s end.70 1.1. Popov, senior factory inspector o f Kherson Province, seconded N eidhardt’s concern, reporting

22

T he Revolution of 1905 in O dessa

th at the w ar deprived local industry o f m arkets in Siberia and the Russian Far East and forced many factory owners to cut production, reduce staffs, and even close dow n.71 The war disrupted shipping routes and virtually halted all trade to the easternm ost regions o f the Em pire. In an econom y already weakened by several years o f recession, the loss o f m arkets, no m atter how small, had adverse consequences on O dessa's business community. C redit, already scarce as a result o f the recession, now became even harder to obtain as bankers, investors, and foreign m erchants dem anded cash in advance before delivering goods and refrained from investing during w artim e. In January 1904, the am ount o f capital in circulation in Odessa had declined 43 percent from previous years. The credit crunch seriously im pinged o n the activities o f im port-export firms th at depended o n credit. Bankruptcies and liquidations ensued as commercial enterprises either failed to receive paym ent for their goods and services or suffered from a decrease in orders.72 In addition to problem s o f credit and finance, Odessa’s business com m unity freed other problem s caused by hostilities w ith Japan. Industrialists and m er­ chants experienced difficulty in obtaining raw materials and distributing finished products by rail because m ilitary needs enjoyed priority. N ot unexpectedly, the grain trade was especially hard h it, since the disruption o f norm al commercial activities interfered w ith the transport o f grain to and from Odessa. Grain exports plum m eted 33 percent between 1903 and 1904, and the decline continued into 1905; grain exports for the first five m onths o f 1905 were only 56 percent o f w hat they had been for the corresponding m onths in 1904. Overall, exports o f all products, m easured in volum e, dropped a precipitous 38 percent between 1903 and 1905.73 Along w ith this decline in trade, O dessa's industrial sector entered a period o f retrenchm ent. O n the w hole, the war affected m anufacturing less than com m erce, bu t industry was nonetheless h u rt by the hostilities. In som e cases, such as m etal processing and sugar refining, the difficulties had begun before 1904 and can be attributed to unfavorable m arket conditions; the war com ­ pounded the im pact o f constricting markets. For example, iron-foundry output dropped 50 percent from the years before the war, and several iron foundries closed their doors due to the lack o f credit and business. In other industries, such as food processing, canning, and chemical and rope production, the war had a m ore direct affect by disrupting the flow o f raw materials. To be sure, some branches o f the econom y benefited from the war and the need to satisfy m ilitary dem ands. Such was the case with the leather industry, which filled governm ent orders for boots. But even here many m anufacturers failed to recognize the profitability o f m ilitary contracts and did n o t enter into agreem ents to supply the army.74 A telling sign o f O dessa's econom ic woes was the specter o f grow ing unem ­ ploym ent despite the thinning o f the work force by the calling up o f reservists for the war effort. C onstruction workers were especially hard h it by the economic crunch caused by the war. As new housing starts drastically dropped in 1904, c o n tin u in g a tre n d th a t had b egun several years earlier, h u n d red s o f

Odessa on the Eve o f 1905

23

housepainters, roofers, plasterers, and unskilled laborers were throw n into the ranks o f the unem ployed. Workers in enterprises that supplied construction materials were also adversely affected by the dow nturn in the economy, as woodw orking shops, brick factories, and lum beryards cut production and laid o ff workers.75 A Factory Inspectorate report concluded th at, during 1904-1905, over 3,000 workers in a factory labor force o f over 20,000 under its jurisdiction were unem ployed, w ith another 2,800 w orking at half wages. The report blamed the Russo-Japanese War for this dismal state o f affairs.76 Since not all workers and enterprises were covered by the Inspectorate, the num ber o f workers left idle by the econom ic dow nturn was undoubtedly higher than these figures indicate. War and recession com bined w ith structural weaknesses in the local economy to exacerbate the grow ing pains o f Odessa. They sorely strained the resources o f the d ty, whose leaders were unable to respond to the challenge o f satisfying the bade needs o f the burgeoning population. W orkers, w ho accounted for m ost o f this population grow th, felt the bru n t o f the problem s that resulted from rapid urban expansion and the econom ic dow nturn after the turn o f the century. T he next tw o chapters examine the living and working conditions o f the Odessa work force and explore the ways in which Odessa workers responded to these conditions before 1905. Later they responded by organizing, protesting and striking, thereby providing the motive force behind the 1905 revolution in Odessa. The stage for mass labor unrest, however, had been set by how workers responded to the inadequacies o f life and w ork in the years before the revolution.

Views o f the harbor at Odessa. (Public Record Office, London)

Street scenes in Odessa. (Public Record Office, London)

Rishd’evskaia Street, with Opera in background. From a centennial volume produced by the Odessa city administration, , 1794-1894. (Odessa: Tipografiia A. ShuTtse, 1895)

Bazaar in Slobodka-Romanovka. (

1794-1894)

Moskovskaia Street in Peresyp. (Odessa, 1794-1894)

Municipal night shelter. (

1794-1894)

Flea market on Prokhorovskaia Square in the Pctropavlovskii District, near Moldavanka. (Odessa, 1794-1894)

Jewish meat market. (Public Record Office, London)

Jewish bootblacks. (Public Record Office, London)

Pedlars from the Caucasus. (Public Record Office, London)

2 Workers in Odessa on the Eve of 1905

W orkers in Odessa were a highly diverse group, including persons engaged in manual occupations in the m anufacturing, construction, transportation, salesclerical, and service sectors o f the economy. They ranged from skilled, well-paid m achinists employed in the railway workshops and m achine-construction plants to unskilled factory hands, from talented bricklayers and masons to lowly day laborers who dug ditches and hauled dirt at construction sites. For every master tailor w ho made elegant, custom -m ade m en’s suits, dozens o f inexperienced teenage girls sewed poor quality trousers and jackets In “sweated” workshops or eked out miserable livings as seamstresses in overcrowdoT apartm ents that {doubled as living quarters for one or more families. For every woman employed in a candy factory or to bacco processing plant, dozens o f children earned paltry w agerw hile sitting at hom e, wrapping candy or rolling cigarettes for subcon tractors. For every man who operated the mechanized conveyor belt that carried grain from dockside'into the hulls o f o v ersell freigKters7'hundrecls o f dockw ôrkeiytified heavy sacks of "grain on their shoûîderel n t ^ waiting ships. As the following table shows, at the turn o f the tw entieth century there were approx­ imately 190,000 workers. If we include members o f workers’ families w ho were n o t gainfully employed, then the proportion o f inhabitants belonging to the w orking class was well over half the total residents o f O dessa.1 It is difficult to present a com posite social profile o f the Odessa labor force o r even to dicuss the “typical” Odessa worker, since differences in nationality, sex, age, skill level, and nature o f work accounted for variations in working and living conditions. Yet the heterogeneity o f working and living conditions should n o t mask the com m onality o f experiences shared by all Odessa workers as underprivileged, exploited second-class citizens. In many ways the lives o f Odessa workers differed little from those o f workers in other Russian cities: they endured. the same long hours, low wages, poor working conditions, and regimen-ofharsh disapline. Officially, the length o f the workday in Odessa averaged between ten and eleven hours for workers in enterprises under the aegis o f the Factory

T he R evolution of 1905 in O dessa

32

TABLE 4 Size and Distribution o f the Odessa Work Force by Sector on the Eve o f 1905 (Rounded to the nearest ten) Sector

H um ber o f Workers *

M anufacturing Factory Workshop Construction Transportation (including merchant marine) Shop Assistants Service Communication Day Labor Total

25,300 46,020 14,760 13,860 33,000 38,820 460 16,210 188,430

The number o f factory workers (after 1901 any manufacturing establishment with twenty or mote employees was dassified as a “factory") includes 21,794 persons counted in 1903 by the Factory Inspectorate and approximately 3,500 employees o f the workshops o f the South West Railroad, the DobrovoVnyiflot, two state-owned distilleries and liquor warehouses, and the print shop o f the Odessa military command. The figure for workshop employees does not indude 7,620 master craftworkcrs who owned their own workshops and employed labor. It does indude the 11,962 journeymen and 7,703 apprentices registered in 1903 by the Odessa Board o f Artisanal Trades. To these numbers I have added 5,236 employees o f relatively large workshops with a limited division o f labor and ready-made production and 17,715 other workshop employees whom the Board of Artisanal Trades estimated worked in Odessa but were not registered in any guild. I also indude 3,800 bakers who were not recorded by d th er the Factory Inspectorate or Board o f Artisanal Trades. The data for construction workers indude 4,000 employees o f the stone quarries, 7,758 construction workers recorded in the 1897 census, and 3,000 seasonal workers. This last figure certainly underestimates the number o f seasonal laborers, since it is taken from a study completed in 1880. The 704 construction workers who in 1903 belonged to guilds (and were therefore counted as artisanal workers) have been classified with construction workers for the sake o f consistency. Sources: OOKTM za 1903-1905#., prilozheniia 19 and 22; OOKTM za 1901 p. 207; OOORUza 1902-1904#., p. 8; KR, April 5, 1905; TsGIA, f. 23, op. 29, d. 80, p. 23. The figures for transportation, construction, communication, sales-clerical, service, day, and other unskilled workers arc taken from Perepis’, pp. 88-131; Adamovich, Chemomorskaia re¿istratsiia\ BcPfor, “Proftoiuzy Odessy v revoliutsii 1905-1907 godov," p. 50; Gudvan, Prikazchiki v Odern, p. 15; OOKTM zm 1 9 0 0 p. 168; Bcmshtcin, Odessa., p. 78.

Inspectorate. In practice, however, it often stretched to twelve, thirteen, and even fifteen o r sixteeiTTioiirs, ring rn |nnphnjps¿ lav rnfnigfirifftif o f existing legisla tio n . com pulsory o v e rtim e ^ o f te n w ith o u t ad d itio n al ~päy)V and m anagem ent’s refusal to perm it workers to takc lbreaks.2 In branches o f the econom y not subject to factory inspection, the average workday was even longer. Employees o f workshops and small enterprises as well as construction workers, day laborers, and shop assistants were not covered by the m eager labor legislation that existed in the pre-1905 period. W orkers in the stone quarries commonly endured eighteen-hour workdays, and even the conductors and drivers o f tram s found themselves working eighteen hours a day, at times laboring up to twelve

33

Workers in Odessa on tke Eve o f1905

hours w ithout interruption. Even pharm acists’ assistants, though skilled and literate, worked fourteen-hour days.3 W orking conditions were arduous, hazardous, and som etimes fatal. Accidents abounded. In one instance a stoker, unaware that a boy hired to scrub o ff the accum ulated scum in the boilers o f ships had fallen asleep inside the boiler, filled it w ith water, boiling the child to death.4 Even in less dangerous lines o f em ploym ent, workers suffered from industrial illn rrrn _Faftnrift anil rrnrl-rhnpi were generally characterized by poor ventilation ^ n d lighting, filth, and other unhygienic lundiiium . Respiratory problem s and throat, eye, and stomach ailm ents were com m on due to th e inhalation o f noxious chemicals, fiimes. and~ dust. Workers in paint faetones frequently succumbed to tuberculosis after two years o f em ploym ent, and printers often died from lead poisoning.5 Shoemakers and tailors generally labored in crow ded, dam p, dark, and cold basem ent apart ­ m ents; poised on low, w ooden benches, they would sit long hours hunched over their work. . O ne bootm aker com plained that he w orked in a workshop that doubled as the kitchen o f his em ployer's apartm ent. H e w rote that “it is filthy—d irt and slop everywhere,” w ith cobwebs covering the entire ceiling.6 .W orkers also endured harsh systems o f discipline, fines, and arbitrary deducH w ir «.«rm ng«

k n r /»v*nr«pl