Putilov Works

The empire's largest metal and machine works

The Putilov Works was one of the oldest and largest machine-building and metallurgical enterprises of the Russian Empire, the USSR and present-day Russia. Its root was the Kronstadt iron foundry, built in 1789 and moved to St. Petersburg in 1801, where the first cannonball was cast on 3 April 1801 (O.S. 21 March); that date is counted as the plant's birthday. In 1868 Nikolai Putilov bought the state plant, ruined by a failed lease to a private firm, and the purchase was confirmed by a Senate decree in 1869. Supplying rails to the treasury at 1 ruble 88 kopecks per pood, the works began Russia's mass production of rails, and it installed a Bessemer converter in 1870 and St. Petersburg's first open-hearth furnace in 1874. With the charter of the Society of Putilov Works approved on 24 October (O.S. 12 October) 1872, it became a joint-stock company of five plants; it moved from railway rolling stock to steam locomotives in 1893. By 1900 it ranked first among Russian metallurgical and machine-building plants in output, behind only Krupp in Germany and Armstrong in England in Western Europe.

Epicentre of the workers' struggle, 1904-1905

In December 1904 the foreman Tetyavkin dismissed four workers of the carriage shop's woodworking section who belonged to the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of St. Petersburg led by Father Georgy Gapon. When the Assembly's demand for their reinstatement and the foreman's dismissal was refused, the entire workforce of 12,500 left the Putilov Works on 3 January 1905; the walkout spread to other enterprises, becoming a general strike of 105,000 workers in 382 plants by 7 January. On 9 January (O.S.) the march of workers to the Winter Palace was broken up by volleys from Imperial Guard units; the death toll of more than a hundred made the day known as Bloody Sunday, the starting point of the Revolution of 1905-1907. Amid the First World War the government pressed in 1915 to sequestrate the works over delayed military orders, making state control of the plant and its capital a wartime political issue.

Revolution and a Soviet factory

In February 1917 the works was the largest artillery plant in the country and the city, employing 29,000 workers. A mass strike that began on 18 February (O.S.) grew into demonstrations and clashes with police on 23 February, setting in motion the February Revolution in Petrograd. That year the works was an important centre of Red Guard formations, and on 27 December 1917 (O.S.) it was nationalised over the debts of its joint-stock society to the treasury; turner Anton Vasilyev, elected by the factory committee, became its first 'red' director. During the Civil War twenty-five military units were formed at the plant and more than 10,000 Putilov workers fought at the front. Renamed Red Putilovite in 1922, it produced the Fordzon-Putilovets, the first Soviet tractor, in 1924. On 17 December 1934, after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, it became the Kirov Plant.