The Dynamics of Industrial Injuries in the industry of the Middle Volga Region at the Beginning of the XX century
Authors: Makushev Andrey E. 
Published: September 2020

Introduction. Early industrial modernization, which entered the active phase at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, gave rise to a new reality, which significantly changed the position of man. The facets of this new reality were very different. In the article we will focus on one of them – the influence of the growing industrial environment on one of the main actors of industrialization, the industrial worker. The main objective of this work is to track the dynamics of accidents in the industry of the provinces of the Middle Volga region (Kazan, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk and Penza) at the beginning of the 20th century, and also to identify how it correlated with changes in the most important indicators of industrial development – the number of workers and the number of factories and plants. Consideration of these parameters will allow to obtain new arguments in considering the effectiveness and efficiency of measures taken by the factory inspection and authorities aimed at strengthening the activities of the owners and administration of industrial enterprises to ensure safety and sanitary standards, as well as neutralizing the harmful effects of the industrial environment on the health of workers. Methods. To solve the set tasks, we used elements of the methods of socio-economic analysis, which allowed us to consider the object of study in the context of the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors on it. In the work, methods of information-statistical analysis were used, the results of which were visualized using a graphical representation of the obtained statistical data. The use of modernization theory made it possible to integrate the processes under consideration into the trend of industrial modernization, considering it at the level of subprocesses of a socio-economic type. Results. Based on the analysis of official statistics, the dynamics of changes in the intensity of industrial injuries in the factories and plants of the Middle Volga, supervised by the factory inspection was revealed. The tendency of a rather substantial increase in the total number of accidents with a simultaneous decrease in mortality among workers was revealed. It is shown that the growth of industrial injuries was disproportionately high compared with the change in two important indicators of industrial development: the number of industrial enterprises and the number of workers. The largest scale of industrial injuries was observed in the Saratov and Samara provinces, which generally corresponds to their relatively higher level of industrial development. Discussion and Conclusion. The analysis of occupational injuries statistics in the factories of the Middle Volga region, subordinated to the supervision of the factory inspection, clearly showed that the acceleration of the processes of early industrial modernization observed at the beginning of the 20th century posed new threats to the life and health of workers. Basically, they were technogenic in nature and were directly related to a new round of scientific and technological progress, the result of which was an increase in the scale of production and labor intensity, which increased the danger of work-related injuries and the growth of occupational diseases. Among other factors that aggravated the situation, one can note the low level of qualification of workers, their non-observance of labor discipline, as well as the lack of efforts on the part of the owners and administration of industrial enterprises in the field of labor protection.