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J. & P. Coats in Tsarist Russia, 1889–1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Dong-Woon Kim
Dong-Woon Kim
Affiliation:
Dr. Dong-Woon Kim studied at Korea, Glasgow and Nottingham Universities, and is now a research lecturer at Kyung-sung University.
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Abstract

This article explores the activities in Russia, between 1889 and the Revolution of 1917, of J. & P. Coats, the British multinational firm that manufactured cotton thread. The main motive for Coats's local manufacturing in Russia was to avoid import duties. Manufacturing facilities were secured by means of a joint venture and acquisitions in St. Petersburg, Riga and Lodz. The Russian business was under the full control of the headquarters in Paisley, U.K., and this policy contrasts with the more decentralized management style preferred by many other British multinationals of the day. Despite the unstable political situation in Russia, Coats's mills performed better than their competitors, and accounted for some 90 percent of the national demand by the time they were confiscated in 1917.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , Winter 1995 , pp. 465 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1995

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References

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7 Gately, The Development, 39, 135, 192; Portal, “Moscovite Industrialists,” 164.

8 Gately, The Development, 154–7; Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 50, 70–3.

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12 Meeting, 9 March 1887, Book 1.

13 Meetings, 6 & 18 March 1885, 25 Aug. 1885, Book 1.

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15 Meetings, 5 & 13 April 1886, 24 Aug. 1886, 22 April 1887, Book 1.

16 The Nevsky Mill owned the largest number of spindles (160,764) and the second largest amount of capital (7,362,160 rubles), following the Narra Mill (8,780,000 rubles), in the Moscow-St. Petersburg region in 1863 (Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 70–3).

17 Meetings, 9 March 1887, 28 May 1889, 22 Oct. 1889, 2 Dec. 1889, Book 1; Meeting, 1 Oct. 1890, Minute Book, 1890–1903, UGD 199/1/1/2 (hereafter Book 2).

18 Meetings, 1 Oct. 1890, 21 Nov. 1890, 10 Dec. 1890, Book 2.

19 Gately, The Development, 143–6; Falkus, The Industrialization, 57.

20 Jones, “Origins,” 15.

21 Meeting, 27 Nov. 1891, Book 2. In 1863, the Zhukov Mill had 18,000 spindles with capital of 882,000 rubles (Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 73).

22 Zaionchkovskii, P. S., Pravitel'stvennyi Apparat Samoderzhavnoi Rossii v XIXv (Moscow, 1978), 10–1.Google Scholar

23 Meetings, 23 April 1894, 23 July 1894, 22 April 1895, 27 April 1896, 13 Oct. 1896, Book 2; Investments, J. & P. Coats, UGD 199/1/20/4–5.

24 Meetings, 22 Dec. 1896, 28 Jan. 1897, 5 Aug. 1897, Book 2; Meeting, 22 Oct. 1903, Minute Book, J. & P. Coats, 1903–1918, UGD 199/1/1/3 (hereafter Book 3).

25 Meetings, 4 May 1899, 13 Feb. 1902, Book 2.

26 Meetings, 29 March 1900, 25 Oct. 1900, 18 Sept. 1902, Book 2; Meeting, 28 May 1903, Book 3.

27 Meeting, 24 Jan. 1907, Book 3.

28 Meetings, 24 Jan. 1907, 29 Oct. 1908, 18 Feb. 1909, 27 July 1911, 20 Feb. 1913, Book 3; letters, 25 Oct. 1907, 21 Dec. 1908, Nevsky Letter Book No. 7, UGD 199/1/2/16 (hereafter Letter 7); The Russian Year Book (London, 1913), 598–9.Google Scholar

29 Meetings, 6 March 1918, 6 Nov. 1919, Minute Book, J. & P. Coats, 1918–28, UGD 199/1/1/4 (hereafter Book 4); Chairman's speech, annual general meeting (hereafter Speech), Dec. 1914, Book 3; Harris, E., “J. & P. Coats in Poland,” in Teichova, A. et al. , eds., Historical Studies in International Corporate Business (Cambridge, 1989), 135; Gately, The Development, 199; Hannah, The Rise, 189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Meetings, 1 Sept. 1891, 10 Dec. 1891, 12 May 1892, Book 2.

31 Meetings, 27 Sept. 1900, 25 April 1901, Book 2; letter, 30 Oct. 1900, Nevsky Letter Book No. 2, UGD 199/1/2/11 (hereafter Letter 2). It should be remembered that the dividend of multinationals' subsidiaries does not necessarily indicate either relative or absolute profitability.

32 Meeting, 18 Sept. 1902, Book 1; letter, 15 Oct. 1900, Letter 2.

33 Meetings, 11 Nov. 1903, 24 March 1904, Book 3.

34 Meetings, 28 April 1904, 2 June 1904, 14 July 1904, 26 Jan. 1905, 2 March 1905, 15 July 1905, Book 3; Speeches, Dec. 1904, Dec. 1905, Book 3.

35 Letter, 5 April 1905, Nevsky Letter Book No. 4, UGD 199/1/2/13 (hereafter Letter 4); Meeting, 6 April 1905, Book 3.

36 Meeting, 24 Aug. 1905, Book 3.

37 Meeting, 22 Feb. 1906, Book 3.

38 Meeting, 14 June 1906, Book 3.

39 Meeting, 18 Sept. 1902, Book 2; Meeting, 27 Sept. 1906, Book 3; Speech, Dec. 1906, Book 3.

40 Meetings, 28 April 1910, 2 June 1910, 18 July 1912, 22 Aug. 1912, 12 Dec. 1912, 20 Feb. 1913, 11 Dec. 1913, Book 3.

41 Meeting, 12 Dec. 1917, Book 3.

42 Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 64. Dividends of nine public French and Belgian textile companies in 1909–11 ranged from 3 percent to 18 percent with the median of 6.25 percent (The Russian Year Book, 599).

43 Jones, “Origins,” 13–5.

44 Meetings, 1 Oct. 1890, 21 Nov. 1890, 19 Dec. 1890, 1 Sept. 1891, Book 2.

45 Meetings, 1 May 1893, 18 Nov. 1895, 28 Jan. 1897, Book 2.

46 Letter, 8 Oct. 1898, Nevsky Letter Book No. 1, UGD 199/1/2/10 (hereafter Letter 1); meeting, 23 July 1894, Book 2.

47 Meetings, 27 April 1896, 25 May 1896, 25 Oct. 1900, Book 2.

48 Meetings, 25 Oct. 1900, 30 May 1901, Book 2.

49 Meetings, 28 Jan. 1897, 25 Feb. 1897, Book 2; letter, 2 Oct. 1905, Letter 4.

50 Meetings, 3 May 1900, 9 Jan. 1902, Book 2; Meeting, 26 Jan. 1905, Book 3.

51 Letter, 6 March 1906, Letter 4.

52 Meetings, 22 Feb. 1912, 12 Dec. 1912, Book 3.

53 Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 65–6. See also “The Problem of Labor,” McKay, Pioneers, 242–67.

54 Meeting, 18 Nov. 1895, Book 2; letters 18 Sept. 1907, Nevsky Letter Book No. 5, UGD 199/1/2/14 (hereafter Letter 5); letters, 14 & 21 May 1909, Letter 7; letter, 8 Dec. 1910, Nevsky Letter Book No. 8, UGD 199/1/2/17 (hereafter Letter 8); letter, 17 March 1911, Nevsky Letter Book No. 9, UGD 199/1/2/18 (hereafter Letter 9).

55 Meetings, 15 June 1905, Book 3; letter, 26 April 1906, Letter 4.

56 Thompstone, “Ludwig Knoop,” 65. See also “Belations with State and Society,” McKay, Pioneers, 268–94.

57 Letter, 21 March 1899, Letter 2; letter, 24 June 1903, Nevsky Letter Book No. 3, UGD 199/1/2/12 (hereafter, Letter 3); letter, 11 Nov. 1909, Letter 7; letter, 15 Oct. 1910, Letter 8.

58 Letter, 21 Sept. 1909, Letter 7.

59 Letter, 24 Sept. 1909, Letter 7; letters, 20 Oct. 1910, 16 Nov, 1910, Letter 8.

60 Letters, 14 Oct. 1910, 10, 14, 15 & 21 Nov. 1910, Letter 8.

61 Letter, 8 Sept. 1898, Letter 1; letter, 8 July 1901, Letter 3; letter, 15 Nov. 1906, Letter 4.

62 Speech, Dec. 1914, Book 3.

63 Speeches, Dec. 1915, Dec. 1916, Book 3; Meetings, 11 Nov. 1915, 3 Feb. 1916, 13 April 1916, Book 3.

64 Meetings, 18 May 1916, 27 June 1916, 30 Aug. 1916, 4 Oct. 1916, 8 Nov. 1916, Book 3; Speech, Dec. 1916, Book 3.

65 Meetings, 24 Jan. 1917, 7 March 1917, 11 April 1917, 16 May 1917, Book 3.

66 Speeches, Dec. 1917, Dec. 1918, Book 3; Meetings, 15 May 1918, 24 June 1918, Book 4.

67 Husband, W. B., “The Nationalization of the Textile Industry of Soviet Russia, 1917–1920: Industrial Administration and the Workers During the Russian Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1984), 251.Google Scholar For the process of nationalization in general, see, for example, Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923 (London, 1952), Chap. 15, 16, 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Malle, S., The Economic Organization of War Communism, 1918–1921 (Cambridge, 1985), Chap. 2, 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, S. A., Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories 1917–1918 (Cambridge, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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69 Keir, D., The Coats Story, Vol. III, typescript (1964), 101.Google Scholar

70 McKay, “Foreign Enterprise,” 350–4. See also Sutton, A. C., Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1917 to 1930 (Stanford, Calif., 1968)Google Scholar; Sutton, A. C., Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1930–1945 (Stanford, Calif., 1971).Google Scholar