Industrialization as the displacement of manual labor by machines in Russian industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (on the 140th anniversary of the birth of L. B. Kafenhaus)
Georgy N. Shumkin, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher
Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Science, Yekaterinburg, Russia, shumk@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1858-8001
Abstract
The article attempts to examine the industrialization of Russian industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a process of replacing manual labor with machinery. The source of the work was the statistics collected by L. B. Kafenhaus. The object of the study was the data on the number of workers, engine power, and the cost of manufactured goods for 1890, 1900, and 1908 in 34 industries. The dynamics of absolute (number of workers, engine power, cost of production) and relative indicators (labor productivity, labor intensity, labor intensity of production, energy intensity of production) were analyzed, and vectors of equal output were constructed and analyzed. The results of the work give grounds to assert that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the Russian industry was in the process of replacing workers with machinery. This dynamic can be most confidently judged by the vectors of equal output. The vectors showed that of the two periods — the economic upswing of the 1890s and the crisis of the early twentieth century, the first period was more productive — during favorable market conditions, enterprises have more opportunities for technical re-equipment. Vectors have given a high proportion of exceptions, most of which are explained by the impact of prices on finished products, as well as the exhaustion of natural resources.
Keywords
Industrialization, industry, Russia, the vector of equal product output, labor productivity, labor power ratio, statistics.
For citation:
Shumkin G. N. Industrialization as the displacement of manual labor by machines in Russian industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (on the 140th anniversary of the birth of L. B. Kafenhaus). Vestnik of Orenburg State Pedagogical University. Electronic Scientific Journal, 2025, no. 3 (55), pp. 270—289. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32516/2303-9922.2025.55.16.
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