Attitudes to labor in pre-revolutionary Russia

Attitudes to labor in pre-1917 Russia looks into the issue of labor ethics as displayed by Russian peasants and workmen between mid-19th century and 1917 revolution. Framework of analysis is the assumption of two sociologically ideal types of labor ethics - a) consumerist, traditional or minimalist, and b) modern, bourgeois and maximalist, B. Mironov scrutinizes such issues as holidays and workdays with peasants, attitude of peasants to labor agreement and labor, number of workdays per year and duration of workdays with the workers, and their attitude to labor. European preindustrial history had witnessed periods when peasants had been working some 125-135 days a year (at best) - the same as in Rissia in the period under discussion. New labor and leisure ethics-model came basically into existence by mid-19th century, and Russia's turn arrived at the end of the same century - 296-308 working days a year with six-day working week becoming a norm. Transformation of traditional labor ethics had been by far incomplete both in rural and urban milieus by 1917, a fact reflected in recent studies showing labor ethics in contemporary Russia being neither fully maximalist nor minimalist.