History of the Russian Mennonites

It is rare that Mennonites make the news for their protests to pressure government or industry. Here is one example. The agricultural machinery factories in in the Greater Zaporozhzhia-Alexandrovsk economic zone—including the villages of Chortitza, Einlage, Osterwick, and Schönwiese—were places of significant labour unrest in the early 1900s ( note 1 ). In February and March 1905 factory workers mobilized at the Mennonite factories of Schulz, and of Lepp and Wallmann in Alexandrovsk, where the following demands were made: an 8-hour workday a weekly or bi-weekly pay schedule courteous treatment of employees immunity from punishment for elected labour representatives minimum wages no child labour appropriate equipment for moving heavy weights free family medical care free schooling for children workmen’s compensation regulation of overtime factory hygiene including showers and proper air ventilation lunch room facilities conflict resolution mechanisms the abolition of fines accidenta...

Below are stories of two pogroms and of the responses in two Mennonite communities in Ukraine/Russia. The first location is Einlage (Chortitza) in 1905, with two episodes. The rage of peasants and the working class exploded with strikes, bloody revolts, chaos and plundering across the land, especially on the estates early in 1905. The Greater Zaporozhzhia-Alexandrovsk economic zone, with larger Mennonite manufacturers of agricultural machinery in Einlage as well, was a centre for some of that labour unrest ( note 1 ). In the shadows of the larger March 1905 Russian Revolution, there were so-called provocateurs named the "Black Hundred" ( note 2 ) who organized pogroms across Russia, but especially in ethnic Ukrainian and Polish areas. “Jewish stores, shops, and homes were broken into, robbed, and plundered; Jewish women and girls were raped and brutally murdered. Many Jews lost not only their belongings in Russia, but also their lives. And all with impunity. The police ...