Socio-economic adaptation of workers of the mining Urals in the late XIXth – early XXth centuries

Author(s):  I.D. Korobkov, Dr., no, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University, Magnitogorsk, Russia, korobkov@magtu.ru

Issue:  Volume 46, № 4

Rubric:  Topical issues of russian history

Annotation:  The instability of the social and economic development of post-Soviet Russia and the serious social costs of the reform course of its leadership have put forward among the priorities of Russian sociology the study of adaptation of various social groups to these reforms. Taking into account the duration of the formation of adaptation practices and their consolidation in the mass consciousness at the level of behavioral codes, this problem requires consideration on the historical material of Soviet and pre-Soviet Russia. This circumstance, as well as the lack of study of these subjects on the example of workers of the mining Urals at the turn of XIXth – XXth centuries due to the choice of research topics. All strategies of adaptation of the Ural workers considered in the article were divided into active and passive models of adaptation. The first includes various attempts to improve the production activities of their enterprises, including the introduction of working control over them, Handicrafts and secondary employment in agricultural work. The main manifestations of the passive version of social and economic adaptation were the appeal of the Ural workers to the past, the desire to preserve the various elements of the binding relationship and paternalistic attitudes of mass consciousness. In real life, the most widespread were mixed forms of adaptation behavior of workers in the Urals. Among the main adaptive factors, the influence of the features of the mining system, the psychology of local workers and the socio-cultural mechanism of «archaization of consciousness» are singled out. The latter two, in turn, made it difficult to modernize the mining industry of the region. Due to the lack of the necessary database to assess the level of efficiency of the adaptation process of the Ural workers to solve this problem, we use the criterion of its confrontational, equilibrium or harmonious nature. Taking into account the insufficiency of unambiguously active forms of adaptation and the mass character of Patriarchal and paternalistic practices, the conflict nature of land relations, the high level of the strike movement, including factory terror, we can talk about the predominance of the first option and therefore consider the socio-economic adaptation of the workers of the mining Urals to be of little success.

Keywords:  workers, the Urals, adaptation, behavior, binding relations.

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DOI:  10.18413/2075-4458-2019-46-4-713-723

Reference to article:  Korobkov Yu.D. 2019. Socio-economic adaptation of workers of the mining Urals in the late XIXth – early XXth centuries. Belgorod State University Scientific Bulletin. History. Political Science, 46(4): 713–723 (in Russian). DOI 10.18413/2075-4458-2019-46-4-713-723