Life in the cities for workers
Workers in the overcrowded slums of the cities earned wages so low that few could afford decent housing. Many workers and their families lived in shared accommodation or in cold, unhealthy, overcrowded barracks provided by their employers. In smaller factories the workers slept by their workbenches.

They, like the peasants, had to bear the burden of heavy taxation on food and goods. There was no system of social welfare and, as they were not allowed to form trade unions, no one to deal with their problems. Strikes were not uncommon but these were unsuccessful because there were always workers so poor that they would work under any conditions. The government, which owned the largest factories, was aware of the growing discontent among the workers and was worried about so many living so close together as socialist agitators began to spread ideas of revolution among the poor. Special police were sent by the government to spy on the workers.

Life in the Cities
The following sources provide some evidence of living and working conditions in Russia at the end of the 19th Century.

Source 1:

Picture of a workers' boarding house in Moscow around 1900

Source 2: Report on workers' living conditions from the records of Moscow Municipal Council, 1902

'The apartment has a terrible appearance, the plaster is crumbling, there are holes in the walls, stopped up with rags. It is dirty. The stove has collapsed. There are legions of coachroaches and bugs . . . No double window frames and so it is piercingly cold. The lavatory is so dilapidated [old and damaged] that it is dangerous to enter and children are not allowed in. All apartments in the house are similar.

Published in Joan Hasler, 'The Making of Russia'

Source 3: 'The Life of the Cotton Workers'. From the biography of a priest who led a Workers demonstation in St Petersburg in 1905

'The normal working day is eleven and a half hours of work . . . But . . . manufacturers [the factory owners] have received [government] permission to allow overtime so that the average day is fourteen or fifteen hours. I have often watched the crowds of poorly clad and emaciated [very thin] figures of men and girls returning from the mills . . . Their grey faces seem dead, . . . Why do they agree to work overtime? They have to do so because they are paid by the piece and the rate is very low. Returning home . . . the workman sees the sad faces of his wife and hungry children in their squalid corner where they are packed like herrings.

For fifteen to twenty years of such a life, even if they have not succumbed to accident or illness men and women lose their vitality and capacity for strenuous labour. Then they lose their places at the mill. Crowds of such unemployed are to be seen at the factory gates in the early morning . . . Badly clad [dressed] and underfed, waiting in the terrible frosty mornings of the St Petersburg winter, they present a sight that makes one shudder.'

George Gapon, 'The Story of My Life', 1906

Source 4: An Historian's account of workers living conditions

'Living conditions were among the worst in the new extracting industries [mining]. At Baku . . .almost all the workers lived in barracks built by the oil firms. . . the buildings . . . lacked light, had no ventilation and were crammed with plank beds. Heating came from oil stoves which produced smoke, dirt and soot and easily caused fires. Some firms, in the interests of economy, built barracks for only half their workers: they were occupied in shifts. Beckendorff, head of one of the oil-producing firms, said . . .that it was impossible to pass 'without horror and trembling' a workers barracks. 'the workers, all in greasy, soot-covered rags, swarm like bees in the extremely dirty and congested quarters. A repulsive smell hits you as soon as you try to approach a window.'

Lionel Kochan: Russia in Revolution

Source 5: Union organiser, Josef Stalin wrote in 1901

"Wages are being reduced and bonuses are being taken away. Hours of work are being extended. Workers who make trouble are blacklisted [their names would be listed as unsuitable employees]. The system of fines and beating up is in full swing".

NB: Stalin was a member of the Marxist Social Democratic Party at this time.

Exercise 4.4: Source study on Workers Use Source 1: What information can you find about workers' living conditions from this source? Do any of the other sources support your information? Say which source and how it supports Source 1. Use Sources 3 & 5: Describe the main problems facing workers mentioned in these sources. Analyse each source using the guidelines given earlier. How reliable would each of these sources be to historians studying how workers lived in Russia at the beginning of the 19th Century? In your answer consider the perspective of each source and say how this might affect its reliability. Email your answers to your teacher.

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