THE WORKER AS RADICAL In the autobiography of I

In the autobiography of Ivanovich Kanatchikov, A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia, Kanatchikov is radicalized by his work experience. He lives at a time of major change as many of the peasant class who worked the farms were being transferred by circumstances and economic change to urban factories where the work was very different. The radicalization of this worker takes place as he moves from the rural to the urban region, from farm work to factory work, from a state of political apathy to a state of political concern, and from worker to radical.

Kanatchikov's early life is in the rural regions, and there is no indication that this was some sort of ideal life later changed by the harshness of the factories. The life of the peasant was no better and perhaps worse than that of the factory worker, and Kanatchikov indicates this in the beginning when he says there is nothing outstanding about his childhood except that he survived:

I wasn't devoured by a pig, I wasn't butted by a cow, I didn't drown in a pool, and I didn't die of some infectious disease the way thousands of peasant children perished in those days, abandoned without any care during the summer harvest season (3).

The move to the city made by the young man was a manifestation of the usual desire of youth to get away from home an make it on their own, but in addition, Kanatchikov wanted toe scape from the monotony of village life and from the despotism and religious teaching of hi

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, the mass of workers had looked upon students as restless rioters, as atheists who attacked the tsar for obscure reasons and, in any case, stood at a very great distance form the workers' day-to-day interests. But now many workers were beginning to speak sympathetically of students who, unafraid of punishment, "seek after justice" (45). Kanatchikov goes through a period during which he is fired over and over again as he moves from one factory to another, and always he seeks justice and finds none (76). Kanatchikov also seeks to improve himself and reads all that he can to educate himself. This is another source for the radicalization that occurs, because he gains a wider perspective on the world and so is more aware of how he is being exploited than some of the other workers who are resigned to their lot. Some of the books he read contributed more directly to his radicalization, such as Hauptmann's the Weavers, which at that time was banned. He says it made a strong impression on him, and he learned the words of the "song of the weavers" and repeated it many times: The book had a very disturbing effect on me, stirring up my animosity toward the rich and my pity for the oppressed and awakening many new, previously unknow

Category: History - T