Libmonster ID: BY-3043
Author(s) of the publication: Z. V. PERSHINA

Minsk. Science and technology. 1984. 400 p.

Soviet historiography was supplemented with a generalizing study of one of the detachments of the working class of the USSR. The publication of the peer-reviewed volume 1 meets the urgent scientific and political task of studying the path taken by the working class of our country. The main thing is not to concretize certain quantitative characteristics; it is important to understand this historical path as a process of revealing the essence of the working class, to show how, transforming the world, it itself is transformed at each stage of its development.

This book continues the active work of historians of the BSSR in creating generalizing works on the history of the republic, its Communist Party, trade unions and the Komsomol, industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, the authors gave up the opportunity to analyze the accumulated valuable historiographic material, including the all-Union scale, without placing the corresponding section in the work and almost without referring to historiographic characteristics.-

1 Authors: M. O. Beach, K. I. Shabunya, Z. Y. Kopyssky, V. P. Panyutin, Z. E. Abezgauz, E. M. Savitsky. Editorial Board of the volume: K. I. Shabunya (editor-in-chief), M. O. Beach, Yu. I.Kiryanov.

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kam in the course of the presentation. At the same time, the authors ' team significantly expanded the source base for studying the topic, primarily through archival funds and periodicals. As a result, new data are obtained and summarized that characterize the formation of the proletariat of Belarus, the dynamics, scope, nature and forms of its struggle.

The content of the book answers a number of important questions: how in the course of the socio - economic and political development of Belarus, which proceeded in an indissoluble connection with all-Russian conditions, the objective and subjective prerequisites of the socialist revolution matured, the proletariat was formed and declared itself as a hegemon in bourgeois-democratic revolutions, how the political vanguard of the proletarian revolution was formed under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in the struggle against opportunism and nationalism. The entire content of the study is aimed at refuting the concepts of bourgeois falsifiers who try to prove that in the national regions of our country there was no social ground for the spread of Bolshevism and the victory of the socialist revolution.

With all the variety of specific questions about the history of the working class of Belarus covered, their development in the book is subordinated to three cross-cutting problems that permeate the entire study, connect it into a single whole, and give it completeness. These are the emergence of the proletariat and its formation as a class of capitalist society; the position of the proletariat under capitalism; the struggle of the proletariat and the formation of its ideology, the creation of a revolutionary Marxist party, the transformation of the proletariat into an independent political force, a class capable of fighting for the realization of its historical mission.

The authors cover the formation of the proletariat on the basis of a detailed analysis of the stages of economic development of Belarus, revealing the complexity of the process under study in the context of the crisis of feudal-serf relations. This is all the more important because bourgeois historians are increasingly turning to the early stages of the development of the working class, and this topic has become more important in the modern ideological struggle .2
Studying the formation of the proletariat of Belarus, the authors come to the conclusion that since the end of the XVIII century - after its entry into Russia - the development of workers in this region is characterized primarily by patterns common to Russia as a whole. This is confirmed by the book's consideration of the sources of the formation of the proletariat of Belarus and the explanation of its high growth rates in the post-reform period, especially in the era of imperialism. At the same time, studying the specialization of the Belarusian economy in the system of the All-Russian market, the authors also reveal local features of the proletariat formation process associated with the relatively slow pace of the industrial revolution. It was affected by the weak concentration of production and labor, and the low share of industrial workers. In view of the numerical predominance of small-scale industry, handicraft and service workers, the Mensheviks, Bundists, Social Revolutionaries, Pepeesovites and other opportunists and petty-bourgeois socialists sought support among them. The composition of the proletariat of Belarus was also reflected in the multinational nature of its population; from the very beginning, this detachment of the working class was formed as an international force. The cadres of workers were replenished primarily at the expense of ruined peasants and artisans-Belarusians, as well as Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. A significant part of the skilled workers in Belarus, as in other national regions of Russia, were Russian workers who came from the central provinces. Many of them had not only professional skills, but also experience in strike struggle and class organization, which made it easier to rally the workers of Belarus. The analysis of the social development and national composition of the proletariat presented in the book shows the complexity of the struggle of revolutionary Marxists in Belarus against the influence of opportunist and petty-bourgeois, nationalist parties and trends.

A number of sections of the paper are devoted to the economic and political situation of workers. The authors provide extensive and expressive material on predatory exploitation, absolute and relative impoverishment of the working class, and reveal the connection of these phenomena with the cyclical development of capitalist industry, and changes in the position of the proletariat with the scope of its struggle. At the same time in ha-

2 See Formation of the Proletariat. Problemy istoriografii i istochnikovedeniya [Problems of Historiography and Source Studies], Moscow, 1930, pp. 6-8.

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The descriptive and illustrative method of reporting on the situation of the working class has not been overcome, which ultimately makes it difficult to perceive the dynamics and main trends in general, and makes it impossible to use the revealed data for comparison with the situation of other detachments of the Russian proletariat.

The central place in the book is occupied by the history of the labor movement, analysis of the strike struggle, interaction of economic and political strikes, their connection with demonstrations and rallies. As a result, the conditions for the development of a revolutionary mass strike, which brought the proletariat close to an armed insurrection, are revealed. For further study of the history of the proletariat, the tables of statistical indicators for the years 1895-1907 given in this book are very valuable. They reflect the number of participants in economic and political strikes, demonstrations, mass actions, and the number of settlements in Belarus, including cities covered by various forms of proletarian struggle. During the first Russian Revolution, when the strike struggle, as shown in the work, manifested the hegemony of the proletariat in the liberation movement, these data are given monthly. The omission, however, is that when calculating the number of demonstrations, mass gatherings, and clashes with the police, the authors do not do the same with regard to strikes, although these data for 1895-1904 are published .3 It would be useful to present in tables, using a single method of statistical processing of the collected factual material, quantitative indicators of the development of the labor movement in Belarus during the era of industrial capitalism and the First World War.

A number of problems faced by the authors are related to the characterization of the subjective factor in the development of the working-class movement, the formation of the class consciousness of the proletariat. The book focuses on such poorly studied issues as the formation of the psychology and morality of the proletariat, provides new materials on the beginning of the spread of Marxism, the role of relations with the Emancipation of Labor group and the Polish Workers ' Party Proletariat in this process, and the significance of Lenin's Iskra for the emergence on the territory of Belarus in 1903-1904. a wide network of organizations of the RSDLP, which was headed by the Polessky and North-Western Committees.

During the years of the revolution of 1905 - 1907, the ties of the working class of Belarus with the proletariat of the whole country were strengthened, and proletarian solidarity roused the workers of Belarus to mass political actions. On the eve of the Third Party Congress, the Bolsheviks gained a preponderance here in the organizations of the RSDLP.

The trade union movement of the proletarians of Belarus showed a desire to create unions on an international basis, to unite them on an All-Russian scale. While describing in detail the history of the emergence of trade unions, the authors do not specify the exact time of their appearance. The theme of the ideological and political struggle in the trade union movement of Belarus, in connection with the Bolsheviks ' struggle for the proletarian masses, against opportunists and petty - bourgeois nationalists, is awaiting further elaboration and generalization.

Among the advantages of the book is its attention to the fate of many participants in the working-class movement, and its description of the role of individual detachments of the proletariat of Belarus in the revolutionary struggle. The book vividly presents the workers of railway workshops - the revolutionary core of the industrial proletariat of Belarus. The pages devoted to the birth and development, standard of living and specific weight in the revolutionary struggle of the largest professional detachment of the working class of Belarus, the agricultural proletariat, whose history still does not enjoy the proper attention of researchers, are significantly new.

Unfortunately, the scientific apparatus of the publication is depleted to a certain extent: only indexes of names and geographical names are placed as an appendix to the book. Meanwhile, the publication of a bibliography and index of enterprises would be useful.

In general, the work, which for the first time in Soviet historiography comprehensively covers the process of formation and development of the working class of Belarus, deserves high praise.

3 See Beach M. O. Rabochoe dvizhenie v Belorussii v 1861-1904 gg. Minsk. 1983, pp. 260-277.

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Z. V. PERSHINA, HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASS OF THE BYELORUSSIAN SSR. IN 4 VOLS. Vol. 1. THE WORKING CLASS OF BELARUS IN THE PERIOD OF CAPITALISM // Minsk: Belarusian Electronic Library (BIBLIOTEKA.BY). Updated: 24.01.2025. URL: https://biblioteka.by/m/articles/view/HISTORY-OF-THE-WORKING-CLASS-OF-THE-BYELORUSSIAN-SSR-IN-4-VOLS-Vol-1-THE-WORKING-CLASS-OF-BELARUS-IN-THE-PERIOD-OF-CAPITALISM (date of access: 10.02.2025).

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