Societies of Factory and Mill Owners

in Russia, entrepreneurial organizations that sought to strengthen economic ties between enterprises, to coordinate demands on governmental organizations in the interests of industrial companies, and to facilitate joint actions in the fight against the workers’ movement.

There were two major societies. One, the St. Petersburg Society of Factory and Mill Owners, was established in 1906 as a successor to the St. Petersburg Society to Assist the Improvement and Development of Factory and Mill Industry, which had been in existence since 1897. The second, the Society of Factory and Mill Owners of the Moscow Industrial Region, was founded in 1907. In 1908 there were 18 such societies in Russia. In 1917 the Petrograd Society represented 450 enterprises; the Moscow Society, 1,100; the Ekaterinoslav Society, 91; and the Kharkov Society, 150.

The societies were behind attempts to establish uniform hiring codes and rules for labor discipline. They sought to create a blacklist of politically conscious workers, and they kept records (the so-called wolf tickets) on individual strikers. The societies also promoted the use of strikebreakers and helped organize mass lockouts. Defending the interests chiefly of monopoly capital, the societies influenced the policies of the tsarist regime and later of the Provisional Government on the worker issue. They also participated in the wartime mobilization of industry.

In August 1917 the All-Russian Union of Societies of Factory and Mill Owners, which joined together 21 societies, was created. After the October Revolution of 1917, the societies attempted to sabotage measures adopted by the Soviet power. Toward the end of 1918 they were abolished.