The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps.

The 1905 revolution is attracting the attention of more and more historians. For decades Soviet historians, and to a large measure Western scholars as well, have been entranced by the revolutions of 1917, seeing that year as the defining point of twentieth-century Russian and Soviet history. Recently, some historians have begun to explore the year 1905 and its aftermath in search for meaningful parallels between the political changes then and now in Russia. Others, including Robert Weinberg, view the 1905 revolution as a dress rehearsal for 1917 or as a revolution manque.

This monograph, as the author states in his introduction, is primarily a study of the labor movement in Odessa. It is the story of the politicization of the city's workers and an analysis of the factors which produced this radicalization during the course of the annus mirabilis of 1905 which witnessed Bloody Sunday, massive strikes, the end of a war with Japan, a constitution of sorts, and the bloodiest pogrom of that bloody year. Weinberg sets the scene by presenting a condensed history of the rise of the city, its demographic profile, its ethnic mix, and the tense relations between gentiles and Jews. Those acquainted with the basic literature on the history of the city will find little to surprise them in this outline.

The social historian will find chapter two particularly useful: it describes the working and living conditions of metalworkers, tailors, and day laborers in Odessa on the eve of revolution. The solidarity of workers was impaired because of a de facto separation of Jewish and Russian workers both in their places of residence and especially of work. The sense of community, therefore, was lacking and unfamiliarity with each other's culture resulted in increasing the possibility of ethnic misunderstanding and conflict. Separate mutual aid societies for Jewish and Christian salesclerks reflected this divisiveness.

Not only mutual aid societies, but also cooperatives and after-work school instruction inculcated into some workers an awareness of the necessity for self-help and self-improvement along the path to becoming conscious workers. Although few workers were members of socialist groups--Weinberg estimates only several hundred in the decade before 1905--many more were exposed to their propaganda. The odd but surprisingly successful implantation of the Zubatovist trade-union movement, that is, police-sponsored workers' groups in Odessa among Russian, but not Jewish workers, contributed further to their education as activists. Weinberg summarized: "Workers' contact with SD [Social Democrats] strike funds, Zubatovist unions, mutual-aid societies, and producer cooperatives provided many workers with firsthand experience in conducting strikes, negotiating with employers, formulating grievances, and drawing up demands" (81).

Odessa' workers did not strike in protest of the shooting of peaceful workers and their families in St. Petersburg in January 1905 (Bloody Sunday). Not until after a series of lectures, banquets, and political rallies carried on by the liberal opposition movement among students and professionals did various workers' groups begin to strike in February. Most of the issues were economic, but some workers were beginning to demand the rights of assembly, speech, and inviolability of person. The politicization of the Odessa worker had begun. In meticulous detail and utilizing archival sources, Weinberg describes the waxing and waning of labor unrest and strikes month by month with their accompanying violence and the creation of a soviet of workers' deputies. By October, the author states, "In the eyes of unionized workers and socialist activists, politics was the ultimate arbiter of their economic grievances" (202).

After the tsar's announcement of the October Manifesto, participants of a patriotic procession clashed with Jews who were celebrating the political concessions given by the monarchy. The ensuing riot then turned into a three-day orgy of robbery, rape, mutilation, and murder chiefly of Jews. Drawing on archival materials, the official report of a government investigation by Senator Aleksandr Kuzminiski, and other contemporary sources, Weinberg probes into the causes and culprits of this event which shocked the international community. His conclusion that "male, unskilled, non-Jewish day laborers and dockworkers" (181) were the chief perpetrators of the crimes agrees with my findings and those of Charters Wynn in his recent book on the Donbass pogroms. With equal care the author assesses to what degree the city governor Dmitrii Neidhardt, known for keeping law and order, and the military commander Baron Alesksandr Kaul'bars were responsible for the pogrom because of their failure to mobilize police and troops to stop the pogromists. In an effort to be objective, Weinberg adduces a complex, but far from clear, argument. What is clear and cogent, however, is his claim that the pogrom rendered worker solidarity in Odessa even more fragile.

Weinberg set out to write a political history of the labor movement of this period in Odessa, but he ignores how particular events of the Russo-Japanese war such as the fall of Port Arthur in January 1905, the battle of Mukden in February, and the naval disaster at Tsushima in May, affected the mood, attitudes, and demands of workers. The mutiny of the battleship Potemkin (as suggested by the subtitle of the book) is discussed because it obviously heightened revolutionary activity in the city. It is difficult to believe, however, that workers were not following other military events as well, especially because of their economic repercussions. The economic situation in Odessa is described in general terms as part of the background mostly summarized in the first chapter, but shifting conditions such as unemployment or reduced trade are not recorded month by month as are the local political events and at times political events occurring in the two capitals.

Along with Abraham Ascher's two-volume study of the 1905 revolution and the case studies of the 1905 revolution in Moscow by Laura Engelstein, in St. Petersburg by Gerald Surh, and in the Donbass-Dnepr Bend region by Charters Wynn, this fine book can take its place on the shelf of recent exemplary works on the 1905 revolution in Russia.

Patricia Herlihy Brown University