From peasant to Petersburger

by Evel G. Economakis

Evel Economakis analyses the processes of proletarianization and urbanization undergone by St. Petersburg's industrial working class from its inception in the early nineteenth century up until 1914. He examines local conditions in sending areas and traces the history of factory workers from different provinces. He also studies the reasons which tied the migrant to urban jobs and the rural homeland. The author presents a wealth of new material on the social origins of the labour force of St. Petersburg and concludes that a majority of the factory workforce was objectively proletarianized by 1914.