ABSTRACT
The Soviet regime saw itself as the proletarian state and most often imagined those proletarians as metalworkers who were skilled, literate and urbanized. 1 However, for most of modern Russian history the most significant sector of the working class both in numbers and politically were textile workers, especially cotton textile workers. Textiles were the most important component of Russian industry until the First Five-Year Plan and cotton workers were significant and at times decisive participants in the revolutions of the early twentieth century. Cotton textiles were the driving force of Russia's industrialization, and the industry's history in many ways encapsulates that of the Russian economy during the last two centuries: during the imperial period, tremendous growth through the adoption of Western technology without ever quite catching up with the West; autarkic stagnation under the planned economy; and catastrophic decline once it was exposed to the pressures of a global economy after 1991.
