Revolution in the Factory: The Birth of the Soviet Textile Industry, 1917-1920

Drawing on archival materials previously unavailable to Western scholars, Husband here presents the first detailed local perspective on political, economic, and social relations during the critical years of the Soviet state. Taking into account local loyalties, family and gender identifications, and impulses toward self-preservation--in addition to class frictions--this study of the textile industry shows how unskilled workers shaped their expectations and perceptions of the revolutionary process on their experiences in society and in the workplace, not on ideology or effective political mobilization. Scholars and students of the Soviet Union will find in this lucid analysis a wealth of material that provides a compelling new answer to the much-debated question: To what degree and for what reasons did industrial workers support the Russian Revolution?