Policies and practices against labour movement in the late Russian Empire

This chapter describes the evolution of labour policy and practices against strikers applied by the industrialists and the government in the late Russian Empire. The first part on policy presents an overview of the legislation about strikes and explores how the attitude of governments and industrialists towards the labour movement transformed in time. The second part describes the emergence and development of repressive forces. The third part about practices is based on the results of a quantitative analysis of punitive actions against strikes. The chapter explains the strategy developed by industrialists and state authorities to prevent labour movement and traces the evolvement of this strategy in the period from the 1870s until 1917. To understand policies against labour, the authors analysed national and regional chronicles of the labour movement, legislative materials and reflections regarding labour conflicts published by the contemporaries – industrialists, politicians and scholars. These sources were supplemented by some archival documents providing relevant case materials to illustrate the practices and to present the situation from the perspective of the strikers.