TUGAN-BARANOVSKII, Mikhail Ivanovich.
Russkaia fabrika v proshlom’ i nastoiashchem’ [The Russian factory in the past and present].
St Petersburg, L. F. Pantelev, 1898.
8vo, pp. xi, 496 + 5 folding plates, one printed in red and blue; a few small marks to title page, 1 table reinforced in centre of verso; a very good copy in original quarter calf with cloth corners over paper boards, gilt title to spine, spine chipped at head and foot, lower board scuffed, extremities worn; contemporary Cyrillic inscription to head of title, slightly trimmed.
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Russkaia fabrika v proshlom’ i nastoiashchem’ [The Russian factory in the past and present].
First edition thus, originally issued as the author’s doctoral dissertation in 1894, a historic-economic analysis of Russian factories up to the 19th century. Beginning with a long introductory chapter on the 18th century, the work analyses factory development before and after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. It looks at the changing interdependent relationship between the Russian factory in all its incarnations and the work force, considering the status and wages of the workers. Examining the competition between factory and cottage industry production, it discusses the phenomenon of factories serving as training grounds for craftsmen who then undermined the factories by taking their skills into cottage industries. Factory legislation, the rate of industrial growth, and the place of the state and public opinion in industrial growth are also mentioned. A landmark text in the Marxist-narodnik debates, this was one of the earliest texts to comment on the rapidity of industrial development after 1861 and the great potential therein for further growth nationwide.
Though labelled Volume One, this was in fact the only part ever issued.
A ‘masterpiece, full of original research… a major contribution to economic history.’ (Alec Nove in The New Palgrave)
