Revolution and Counterrevolution: Class Struggle in a Moscow Metal Factory

by Kevin Murphy

Nearly all recognition of the unparalleled democracy the Russian Revolution established has been destroyed by the legacy of the Stalinist regime that followed. Kevin Murphy’s writing, based on exhaustive research, is the most thorough investigation to date on working-class life during the revolutionary era, reviving the memory of the incredible gains for liberty and equality that the 1917 revolution brought about.

Genres: History, Russian Revolution, Russia, Labor, Asia, Russian History, Politics

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[John]

A good, microscopic look at the revolution and period following . Basically, the thesis is that the revolution was NOT a coup de etat, but a actively supported and impelled by workers in action. Neither were workers mere tools of the Bolsheviks or unconditionally adoptive of the Stalinist bureaucratization. Workers existed in a complicated, always shifting relationship to their unions, the various parties, and the Soviet state. The civil war and economic catastrophes destroy much of the cadre-activist layer in the factories, many workers adopting private, individualist strategies to survive. At the same time, bureaucratic labor, political, and administrative structures begin to substitute for workers action and suffocate society.

Lots great archival info in religious attitudes, habits and daily life, and women's struggles. My favorites are the verbatim reports on the q and a sessions at meetings, like when a worker says
"Comrade ____, the Bolsheviks say we're attempting to build an egalitarian society. Can you tell me when we can expect to get food and when everything will be equal?"

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely outstanding. Kevin Murphy has done an incredibly detailed and comprehensive study of the biggest metal factory in Moscow from before the revolution in 1917 and until after the end of Stalin's counterrevolutionary Five Year Plan in 1932. Murphy has looked at the diaries of workers, the records of factory council meetings, reports by secret police, union records, minutes of party meetings and much more besides. He is able to chart the revolution not just as seen by the workers but as carried out by the workers, how the Civil War affects the life of the factory and how the workers understand the hopes for the success of the revolution as other revolutions in Europe fail, and how the workers fight back against the Stalinist counterrevolution during the latter part of the NEP and the Five Year Plan. A brilliant work and thoroughly recommended.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murphy's book tracks the growing confidence of the workers in one Moscow metal factory and the fluctuations of this confidence over the following 20 years. There were too high points for worker confidence, the first being 1917. Murphy also argues that workers in the Moscow 'Hammer and Sickle' metal-works had a great deal of autonomy in the face of a weak party-state between 1921 and 1928. Before 1921, during the civil war, the workers were too sick and cold to offer much resistance, after 1928 the party was able to use their internal prejudices, sexism and anti-semitism to divide and manipulate workers against each other. Workers were forced to stay in the factories and lost wages en masse and party terror was imposed.

Overall the use of documents from workers were exhaustive, but hardly as innovative as the author claims.

[Tiarnán · Rating 4 out of 5]

insightful book, i enjoyed the section on the sheer misery and anarchy of early Stalinism and the first Five-Year Plan. quite depressing though, also

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written with the plodding style of an academic (yawn), Murphy does manage to uncover much of the reality of actually existing worker/Bolshevik thought in the nearly two decades between 1912 and the late 20s in the USSR. The snippets of oral history are tantalising. He focuses on one plant in the midst of Moscow, gleaning various Party, Government and workers' spoken words during this tumultuous time. But Murphy's history is a bit jumbled as he switches between years. I would have preferred a more strictly chronological approach.

What was really fascinating for me was the total absence of any critique of wage-labour either by the workers or those who appointed themselves to lead them. Also,it was very interesting to find workers basically going about their wage-labour after the revolution much as they had before the revolution. The dictatorship of the party seems very weak indeed during the formative years of Soviet bureaucratic consolidation. Anti-Soviet Cold Warriors may be disappointed.

[Andrew Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich material but theoretically speaking, just added a footnote to Tony Cliff's old paradigm