Liudinovo Workers Disturbances

(1861 and 1865-66), spontaneous rebellious actions of the workers of the Liudinovo iron foundry in Kaluga Province, which was owned by Major General S. I. Mal’tsov. The disturbances began on Apr. 5, 1861, with a protest against an attempt to flog a worker publicly. Eight persons, including V. N. V’iushkin and I. M. Ravskii, were arrested and shackled in irons, but were released on April 12 because the workmen refused to work. Alexander II, alarmed by the “revolt,” reprimanded Mal’tsov in December 1861 for his “arbitrariness,” but the serf system at the plant remained unchanged.

In April 1865 the workers sent the village elder la. I. Darochkin and the district elder V. N. V’iushkin to St. Petersburg to lodge a complaint against Mal’tsov and to request a loan to organize an artel foundry. The idea for such an enterprise originated under the influence of the socialist propaganda of A. A. Bibikov and A. K. Malikov, members of the Ishutin circle. When Darochkin and V’iushkin returned from St. Petersburg, they were dismissed from their posts, but the workers refused to elect men to replace them. The disturbances continued with interruptions from July 1865 to September 1866, spreading to the neighboring Sukrem’ Plant and to the surrounding villages. Military units dispatched to the plants broke the workers’ resistance, and 14 persons were arrested. V’iushkin and Darochkin appeared as defendants in the Karakozov trial on charges of disseminating socialist propaganda and were exiled to Vologda Province in late 1866.