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Here are three accounts of the curious and short-lived phenomenon of "police unionism" or "police socialism" in Tsarist Russia. Could it have been made to work? It would presumably require a different kind of Tsar than Nicholas II, but even then the obstacles would be formidable (above all, the problem that to maintain credibility with the workers, it had to show it was something more than a "company union" and this involved the risk of conflicts with the employers that could get out of hand). Yet the idea does seem intriguing and for a while enjoyed some success:

(1) "This ingenious scheme, a direct precedent for the various labor fronts and the like of the fascist regimes, originated in the agile mind of a Moscow police official, S. V. Zubatov. An erstwhile radical, Zubatov persuaded his superiors that the revolutionaries could be beaten at their own game. He was far from being a mere cynical manipulator. On the contrary, Zubatov believed in what might be called a Populist version of autocracy. The Tsar could be brought close to his people, and the workers could be shown that they did not need the noxious intellectuals who stirred them up for their own purposes. He organized unions and pressured employers for concessions to their men. Since, this being Russia, even police unionism could not entirely dispense with the intellectuals, Zubatov procured the collaboration of some professors and journalists, who gave lectures to the unionists. The tenor of this instruction was, to use another anachronistic expression, national-socialistic. The Tsar was one with his people, and the employers in exploiting the workers acted against his desires. Since many of the industrial enterprises were foreign-owned, it could also be added that many of the exploiters were not Russian anyway.

"Zubatov's successes panicked the Socialists. At one point he was able to muster about 50,000 workers at a ceremony of laying wreaths at the monument of Alexander II. He managed to create a police-sponsored union even among the most class-conscious proletarians, the Jewish workers in the Ukraine. But Lenin remained relatively unperturbed. He forecast accurately that the Zubatovs come and go, but that the workers will have learned the lesson of organizing and of pressing their demands. And so it was; the ingenious servant of autocracy was clearly in advance of his time. He soon became the object of professional jealousy and complaints. The industrialists besieged the Ministry of Finance. Was this a way to promote Russia's industrial growth, by stirring up their workers against them? The French ambassador remonstrated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; certathly the government of an allied power was duty-bound to protect the French capitalists rather than to attack them. The right-wing press for some reason began to picture Zubatov as a 'servant of the Jews.' These attacks plus an inopportune 'success' of his movement--a wave of stdkes conducted by the police unions broke out im the summer of 1903-—led to Zubatov's dismissal. In a manner befitting a real revolutionary, the inventive policeman was sent into administrative exile. For all its 'ingratitude' he remained a fervent believer in autocracy, confident. like many others, that had his advice been taken it would have saved Russia. And in 1917, upon hearing of the abdication of Nicholas II Zubatov ended his life with a bullet..." Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks, pp. 182-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=dN5V8WX5WP0C&pg=PA182 https://books.google.com/books?id=dN5V8WX5WP0C&pg=PA183

(2) "'Police Socialism,' initiated by S. V. Zubatov (1864-1917), the head of the Moscow branch of the political police, was also a peculiar kind of social reformism. Himself a former revolutionary, Zubatov thought that it would be possible to prevent workers from being influenced by revolutionary socialism if a legal workers' movement were developed that would be largely controlled by police agents. With the help of some former Social Democratic workers whom he had converted to his ideas and some Moscow University professors (including I. Kh. Ozerov, a pupil of Yanzhul and his successor in the chair of public finance), Zubatov in 1901 founded the Society of Mutual Help of Workers in Mechanical Production, which was in fact the first legal trade union in Russia. This society flourished under police protection and was imitated in Minsk and Odessa. Zubatov was able to control the movement in Moscow, but in the other two towns it got out of hand and he was forced to resign in 1903. The movement seemed to have come to an end, but it was resurrected in the same year in St. Petersburg by G. A. Gapon, an Orthodox priest who was in touch with the police. He founded the Assembly of Russian Workers which, however, soon became penetrated by Social Democrats who used it as a 'front' organization for revolutionary agitation. The procession of workers led by Gapon on January 9, 1905 (known as "Bloody Sunday") with the intention of presenting a somewhat provocative petition to Nicholas II was fired upon by the police, and this was the start of the 1905 revolution..." S. V. Utechin, Russian Political Thought: A Concise History, pp. 187-8. https://archive.org/details/russianpolitical00utec/page/186

(3) "In the first years of the new century a surprising competitor outflanked socialists for workers’ allegiance in Moscow— the police-sponsored Zubatov unions. Between 1898 and 1903, deep social unrest affected all sections of Russian society, including the growing working class. Fearful of socialist influence among the city’s workforce, the Chief of the Moscow Okhrana, Sergei Zubatov, created the Council of Workers of the City of Moscow, an organization that explicitly promoted loyalty to the Tsar. Zubatov believed that workers had many legitimate complaints, and that monarchial reformism had to address their grievances lest they turn to more radical solutions. The council’s activities included lectures, general meetings that discussed the material needs of workers, mutual aid funds, and the filing of over a thousand collective complaints against employers. By 1902, the Zubatov unions had gained enormous influence in Moscow and throughout the central industrial region. On 19 February, the anniversary of peasant emancipation, a peaceful Zubatovist demonstration of fifty thousand workers marched within the walls of the Kremlin in memory of Alexander II. The procession included a requiem mass and the patriotic hymn “God Save the Tsar,” impressing elated government officials while horrifying socialists. The Socialist Revolutionary press acknowledged that Zubatov 'succeeded in imparting the aspect of unity between workers and government' and even the Moscow Committee of the RSDWP admitted, 'social democracy was powerless to deal with police socialism.'

"The council’s attempt to control labor discontent, however, also necessitated proving to skeptical workers that it was not a mere tool of managment--a strategy that led Zubatov to a confrontation with factory owners. Zubatov’s Society of Machine Workers gained a following in the Metalworks as employees repeatedly petitioned the government about unsanitary work conditions and other grievances. One worker recalled that the Zubatovs were particularly strong in the steel foundry shop.

"The 'Guzhon affair' with striking weavers and in his silk mill attracted national attention and catapulted the French industrialist into Moscow’s industrial inner circle. Zubatov had asserted that the council was 'compelled' to side with the workers 'for the maintenance of its reputation,' and went so far as to organize a strike fund. Even the Moscow governor-general, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrov, supported the council, exerting his influence to wrest concessions from factory owners. The strike had wider implications because under the council’s leadership, labor militancy spread in 1902, with workers expecting government support for 'a rapid and great improvement in their position at the expense of the owners.' A factory inspector noted that workers believed that the council had gained the prestige of a government organ, 'created specifically for the defense of workers’ class interest.' Unyielding in the face of the weavers’ demands, Guzhon blamed the conflict on Okhrana interference, refused to negotiate, and marshaled the industrial community to support him in a showdown with the workers. After a bitter battle involving leading government officials and industrialists, Zubatov was reassigned to St. Petersburg on 17 August. Police unionism would continue in Moscow for several more years, but Zubatov’s departure marked the beginning of its decline.

"Although the RSDWP devoted much energy to denouncing the Zubatov, the demise of police unionism had more to do with its embrace of a new, more conservative strategy that prohibited confrontations with management — a tactical shift that inevitably led to a loss of workers’ allegiance. The activities of the Moscow Okhrana again emphasized repression rather than appeasement. So powerful was the Okhrana in the city that experienced revolutionaries often refused to work in Moscow, while many workers feared contact with them. Repression, isolation, the internal schism over economism’ (agitation focused exclusively on workers’ economic, rather than political, demands), and a brief period of working-class retreat at the start of the Russo-Japanese War in January 1904 all limited the activities of the Moscow RSDWP after 1902. The few party members working in the Moscow Metalworks managed to establish a factory cell only for a brief period during the 1905 rebellion.

"The organization that led the January 1905 workers’ revolt in St. Petersburg, Father Gapon’s Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers, had much in common with the Zubatov movement. Originally funded by the police, the Assembly briefly eclipsed socialist influence among workers in the capital in 1904. The attempt to contain labor discontent by initiatives from above again entailed the risk of events moving beyond the boundaries acceptable to authorities. After some of its members were dismissed from the Putilov works, Gapon’s Assembly helped initiate a strike of 120,000 workers, and then organized the huge Sunday 9 January procession to the Winter Palace. The peaceful demonstration of sixty thousand, replete with Orthodox crosses and icons, anticipated a sympathetic response from 'father' Nicholas II to their humble supplication that included an appeal for an eight-hour day, higher wages, and free elections. Instead, government troops fired on the crowd — killing over one hundred and detonating the 1905 Revolution..." Kevin Murphy, Revolution and Counterrevolution: Class Struggle in a Moscow Metal Factory, pp. 13-15. https://books.google.com/books?id=7q2ipV7fQSQC&pg=PA13
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