The Yekaterinburg Bureau of the Council of Congresses of the Ural miners in 1917-1919

The essay investigates the activities of the Yekaterinburg Bureau of the Council of Congresses of the Ural min­ers, which was a public organization, in a difficult period of Russian history: from the February Revolution to the October revolution and the subsequent Civil war. Before 1917, the Yekaterinburg Bureau represented the Council of Congresses in the Urals. It was the interests of the Ural mining industry that the Congress actively protected in the capital. After the February Revolution, the Yekaterinburg Bureau was at the forefront of the struggle between the supporters of the industry''s planned development and the growing wave of anarchy and chaos at regional industrial enterprises. The representatives of local administrations of metallurgical plants started to gather in Yekaterinburg to discuss joint measures to face the crisis. They tried to develop a common strategy and tactics of the struggle. They also created coordination bodies which gathered statistical information on the work of the enterprises and on the is­sues of fuel supply of the enterprises, food supplies, and the development of "revolutionary democracy'' at the plants. After the Bolsheviks came to power and started nationalization of industrial enterprises, the Yekaterinburg Bureau resisted the arbitrariness actively and faced with repressions. The participants of the meetings discussed various eco­nomic problems of the region and made proposals for overcoming the crisis.