Episode 19: Strike! The Tale of Vasilii Gerasimov

Abandoned in 1852 when scarcely two weeks old, Vasilii Gerasimov ultimately became a child worker at the Kreenholm cotton factory, where he worked for 8 years. In 1872, he was a participant in a labour strike at this plant. After leaving, he became a revolutionary propagandist in St Petersburg before being sentenced to exile and hard labour in Siberia. In this episode, we chart Gerasimov's life, paying particular attention to the Kreenholm strike of 1872. Source R. E. Zelnik, Law and Disorder on the Narova River: The Kreenholm Strike of 1872 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)