Power to the Petrol: How the Baku Oil Industry Made Labor Strikes and Mass Politics Possible in the Russian Empire (and beyond)

Author: Richard Ryan Weber

"Interestingly, the same forces, conditions and actors which contributed to the rise of Baku's oil industry also conspired in its fall. More than a victim of revolution, Baku oil fields and the workers who operated them were at the very heart of the Russian Revolution, and also played a role in subsequent political uprisings beyond the domain of the Tsar, including that which ended his dominion for once and all in 1917. What is remarkable... is that the industry itself possessed many of the qualities usually attributed with preventing just such forms of labor power."