# Trade Unions in Soviet Russia/Trade Unions in Soviet Russia

Trade Unions in Soviet Russia:
Their development and present position.
By A. LOZOVSKY
(Member of the Executive Committee of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions).
I. The Early Period.
Trade Unions as fighting organs of the working class against the capitalists arose in Russia only after 1905. But the first hints at labour organisation could be traced to periods considerably before the first revolutionary mass conflicts between the workers and the autocracy. Among these early forms of working class organisations must be included all kinds of benefit societies, mutual aid societies, burial societies and other organisations aiming at elementary mutual aid. These forms of mutual aid societies were particularly widespread in Poland and the Baltic Provinces. In 1898 there were in the Baltic Provinces 98 workingmen's benefit societies and 113 burial societies including members of all classes. Several of these societies date back; to the beginning of the nineteenth century (1821). Similar societies also existed in the Ural region. Reference must also be made to the benefit societies among printers, compositors and lithographers founded in 1838 in Petrograd and to the printers' benefit societies in Moscow. In the eighties and nineties eleven printers' mutual aid societies existed in a number of towns in Russia.
Side by side with this there arose craftsmen societies and in 1898 there were 15 of these in Russia, besides 54 burial societies including all classes. The most widespread organisations previous to the first revolution were shop assistants' societies, and very often the employers were honorary members of these. Mutual aid societies among factory workers did not develop before the middle of the nineties. All these organisations were founded for the purpose of granting financial benefits to the sick, supplying medical assistance and funeral benefit, assistance to invalids, to widows and orphans, and loans and assistance to the needy. These organisations had no relation whatever to the economic struggle. The tsarist policy jealously took care of that. The rules of the factory benefit funds were confirmed by the Minister of Finance, the rules of other mutual aid societies had to be confirmed by the Minister of the Interior and permission for the establishment of such societies in Poland had to be obtained from the Tsar on the representations of the Cabinet of Ministers.
​All these societies, benefit funds and burial societies could only serve an insignificant section of the workers and in no case could they satisfy the need of the workers in a fighting organisation. As the whole machinery of the State was directed to crush the slightest attempt at organising a union in Russia, illegal trade unions began to arise which were part of illegal social-democratic organisations.
Illegal Strikes.
Strikes in Russia were prohibited and were regarded as crimes. As clause 318 of the Criminal C9de of 1874 declares: "Persons accused of belonging to societies having the aim of rousing hostility between employers and workers as well as provoking strikes are liable to imprisonment for 8 months with deprivation of rights and property and exile to Siberia." This law did not remain a mere dead letter; tsarism undeviatingly put it into force and severely persecuted every organised action of the workers and every attempt at improving their position. But repressions never could abolish the class struggle and since the seventies the strike movement in Russia has developed side by side with the development of capitalism. The sharp elemental, strikes of the seventies compelled the government to pass the law of the 1st of June, 1882, prohibiting the employment of children below 12 years of age and limiting the employment of children between 12 and 15 to 8 hours a day. In the eighties the central industrial districts were overwhelmed by a wave of strikes which took a particularly sharp form in Orechov-Zouev due to the imposition of fines. As a consequence of this a law was passed on June 3rd, 1886, referring to the hiring of workers in factories and one in 1885 prohibiting nightwork for women in several industries.
In spite of imprisonment, exile and savage persecution of strikers the strikes broke out in one centre after another. In 1896 a strike of 35 thousand textile workers broke out in Petrograd, which made a tremendous impression not only upon the Government but upon the working classes themselves. The Government, after a series of repressions, issued the law of 1897 which, for the first time in Russia, limited the working day for adult factory workers to 11½ hours for day work and 10 hours for night work. We see therefore that all our factory legislation is closely connected with the large strikes and that in order to avoid discontent, as Professor Tugan-Baranovsky points out, the Ministry of the Interior and the Police Department undertook the task of factory legislation.
Socialists and Trade Unions.
The economic strikes were so obviously connected with politics that the first illegal socialist groups that arose in Russia after the defeat of the Narodniki devoted particular attention to the organisation of the economic struggle. The first strike funds were established as far back as 1888 in Vilna among stocking knitters, tailors and the workers in the paper and boot trades. In 1894 the Jewish workers' federation of Warsaw organised such funds in several trades. In Minsk 4 illegal ​trade unions were organised with 220 members. In Vilna 12 funds were established. Altogether in Vilna there were 850 organised workers belonging to 27 trades and in Minsk 870 workers belonging to 15 trades. These strike funds played such an important part in the development of the Labour movement that when in 1897 the Jewish Labour League of Lithuania, Poland and Russia (the Bund) was established, these strike funds were its foundation stone. The part played by these organisations can be seen from the following figures: in 1900 of the total number of local Jewish workers in Bielostock 20 per cent. were organised in these societies, in Vilna, 24 per cent., in Gomel nearly 40 per cent. and in Minsk 35–40 per cent.
In the nineties unions for fighting for the emancipation of the working class arose in Central Russia and illegally, conducted strikes and assisted strikers. In several Petrograd factories illegal fighting funds were established of which one fourth of the members' contributions were devoted to strikes, a half for mutual aid and the rest for books. In 1895 a Labour Union was established in Ivanovo-Voznesensk which established funds and a library. In 1897 a Central Fund was set up in Nikolaeff, half of the income of which was devoted for strike purposes. All these strike funds and labour unions were created by the Social-Democrats who, in this manner, stood, so to speak, at the cradle of the trade union movement in Russia. These illegal fighting funds and strike funds undoubtedly were embryonic forms of trade unions. In 1898 all unions for the emancipation of the working class united into a single Social-Democratic Labour Party which in Central Russia relied upon illegal groups and organisations and in Poland and the Western provinces on the illegal purely party trade unions. The Russian trade union movement from the moment of its birth bound itself up with the political labour movement. This particular feature of the Russian labour movement manifests itself up to the present moment.
Unions Organised by the Police.
The accentuation of the economic struggle which took the form of political demonstrations against the autocracy suggested the idea in police circles of creating legal labour organisations for the purpose of combatting the harmful influence of the Social-Democrats. The Chief of the Moscow Police, Trepoff, and the Chief of the Moscow "Okrana" ZubatofT were engaged on this question. Trepoff, in one of his reports, states that "success in the struggle rouses a confidence in their strength, teaches them to adopt practical methods of fighting, trains and brings to the front able leaders, convinces the workers of the possibility and the utility of collective action and develops a consciousness for the necessity of the class struggle" and urges the necessity for creating an antidote to the political influence of the Social-Democrats. In Moscow, in 1902, a mechanic society was organised under the direct leadership and protection of the Okrana. In Minsk the Chief of the Police, Vassilev, and in Odessa, Shaevitch, set up similar well intentioned organisations. All the efforts of the Okrana were directed towards concentrating the attention of the working class upon mutual ​assistance and diverting them from political questions; but they had quite an unpleasant experience. As long as these were small closed organisations they were quite harmless but as soon as the broad labour masses began to join, they became centres of the economic struggle. The historian of this police device, Professor Oseroff, declares that as soon as the weavers, for instance, on the initiative of the Okrana, organised a mutual aid society they sent delegates to the factories with a demand for an increase of wages. The union created in Odessa was the initiator of large strikes in which tens of thousands of workers participated. The attempt of the Okrana to protect the economic organisations roused protests on the part of the manufacturers who regarded this as an attempt ot the feudal government to save itself by stirring up the workers against the bourgeoisie. Complaints flowed from Moscow to Petrograd, the Minister of Finance took the side of the employers and Zubatoff was transferred to Vologda.
But as the labour movement was growing unrestrainedly a fresh attempt was made by the Police in 1904 to create support among the workers. A meeting of the Russian factory workers under the protection of the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, and the Metropolitan Antonius, formed a society for the purpose, as the rules state, of "arousing and strengthening national consciousness of the workers." At the head of this society stood Father Gapon who organised 11 branches. These branches in spite of their police origin became the centre of the labour movement in Petrograd. A series of strikes and demonstrations took place which ended in the bloody shambles of the 9th January (old style). This tampering of the police with the workers resulted in the defeat of the autocracy.
The Revolution of 1905.
Bloody Sunday served as a starting point for a tremendous revolutionary impetus. In the course or several months more than 500,000 workers struck. Strikes broke out one after another. Economic strikes took the shape of political strikes. The pressure was so great that tsarism had to look through its fingers at the "illegal" activity of the workers. Simultaneously with the bloody January days and the strike wave roused by these events the work of organising the trade unions was proceeding. The first union to be formed was that of the printers. Immediately after a union of clerks and book-keepers was formed. At the same time a semi-legal union of shop assistants and a union of druggist assistants began to organise. At a secret meeting held in May, 1905, unions of watch makers, tailors, tanners and boot and shoe makers were formed.
A number of unions were formed in Moscow in the spring of 1905. The illegal printers' union which existed in Moscow since 1903 for improving the conditions of labour and which accepted the programme of the Social-Democratic Party, carried on since 1905 an economic struggle. But in September, 1905, a printers' strike broke out in Moscow and advantage was taken of the occasion to create a council of printers' delegates for Moscow which, in fact, became a trade union. In the spring of 1905 the Bolsheviks organised a party union of bakers, the founders of which practically became the leaders of ​the then trade union movement. Similar attempts at forming unions in this improvised manner were made all over Russia and became more frequent as the end of 1905 drew near. In September a new strike wave broke out over the whole of Russia which led to the great strike and famous demonstration of October, 1905. The labour movement in Russia broke through the barriers erected by the autocracy.
First Trade Union Conference, 1905.
The sporadic and spontaneous manner in which the trade unions developed resulted in their composition and organisation being- very diverse, but the demand for a common centre was so great that as far back as 1905 at a meeting of representatives of local trade union organisations in Kharkoff, it was decided to call a national conference. On September 24th and October 1st, 6th and 7th was held the first conference of trade union representatives. At this conference 26 Moscow unions and labour groups, and ten unions from other towns were represented, and the fundamental question which concerned the conference was the organisation of preparatory work in connection with the convening of a national conference. The question arose as to who could participate in the conference in view of the fact that there were no definitely formed unions. The conference decided that "the right to participate in the conference belongs to such mutual aid societies and trade unions as are composed of wage workers of all trades of a proletarian character and are directly or indirectly aiming at fighting capital." With regard to mixed societies it was decided that only the proletarian section of such organisations could have the right of representation. No access to the conference was to be given to the Zubatov organisations. Thus, from the very birth of the unions just emerging from the mutual aid society stage, the struggle assumed a purely class character. In undertaking the struggle against capitalism these unions immediately reached a higher level than many western European and American unions, who, even to-day still regard as their only function the improvement of the conditions of labour. The October days in 1905 gave a tremendous impetus to the trade union movement. At the end of that year there was not a single large town in Russia where a trade union had not been formed. The October political strike gave rise to a number of economic conflicts which, in their turn again, were converted into political conflicts. Everywhere, initiative groups, commissions, strike committees, trade unions, workers' delegate councils were formed and all these organisations, taking advantage of the period of liberty, extended their influence over ever newer sections of the workers. In spite of the series of defeats suffered by the workers in November and December, 1905, the trade unions continued to grow and increase in numbers and when, at the end of February, 1906, the second conference of trade unions was convened, Russia could count 200,000 organised workers.
Second 3Trade Union Conference, 1906.
The second conference decided in favour of the sporadic formation of trade unions independently of the permission of ​the authorities. The conference carried a number of resolutions in connection with the pressing questions of that day and again decided that the practical task of the moment was a convocation of a national conference of trade unions. It worked out the standing orders of such a conference, the agenda, and elected an organisation committee for convening a national conference. The organisation bureau was elected to serve as a national centre until the meeting of the conference and it was the function of this bureau not only to maintain connection with trade unions in Russia, but also to establish connection with the European trade unions. In defining the character of organisations which would be eligible for representation at the national conference, the conference declared that only those societies would be permitted which stood on the tactics of the "modern labour movement." One can hardly regard this formula as sufficiently clear, nor yet the statement of the conference that the "trade unions are the most perfect form of organisation for conducting the struggle of the wage workers organised by trades against the capitalists for the improvement of the conditions of labour," as complete. This caution and vagueness in the formulas are the consequence, on the one hand, of the police conditions and the impossibility of speaking out, and, on the other hand, the undoubtedly great influence of the moderate wing of the Russian social democracy, an influence which was inversely proportional to the progress of the revolution.
The Period of Repression.
From the defeat of the first revolution to the revolution of 1917 the trade union movement, as a mass labour movement, did not exist in Russia. The tsarist government conducted a policy of ruthless extermination of the trade unions. The unions were prohibited from assisting strikers; they were closed down for attempting to intervene in the great strike movement, members of the executives were arrested and exiled to Siberia, funds were confiscated and books taken to the police stations; police were present at all meetings which were closed. down on the slightest pretext, and, very often, without any reason at all. The trade unions were considered dangerous enough for the department of police to issue special circulars and instructions on the way to fight sedition. The iron fist of the victorious, reaction ruthlessly crushed the labour organisations at their birth.
According to the statistics of the Police Department, 104 trade unions were closed down in 1907. The reasons for closing down these unions, as formulated by the Police Department, were: violation of rules, participation of non-members of the union in the management of the union, participation in strikes, attacking employers in the press for dismissing a union member, a boycott by a union branch against a firm and an employee taken on by that firm to replace a dismissed member of the union, a boycott by means of the press against a shopkeeper who refused to employ union men, threatening to boycott an employer and his non-union employees, advocating strikes, activity likely to become a public danger, political unreliability of certain members of the society, participation of members of ​the executive in political propaganda, organisation of strikes and distribution, of revolutionary manifestoes, carrying resolutions criticising the law of November 15th, 1906, on trade unions, making anti-government speeches at meetings, discovery in dining-room of society of socialist manifestoes, telegram to the second Duma promising to rise in its defence, agitation for the purpose of securing the election of a certain candidate to the State Duma, socialist propaganda, discovery of bombs on the premises of the society, opening of libraries without previously obtaining permission, relations with strike committees led by the Bund, relations with the social-democratic organisations, passing resolutions for celebrating the 1st of May, greeting the social-democratic fraction in the State Duma, convening general meetings without previously obtaining permission, political unreliability of members of the trade union, collecting money by sale of tickets without previous notification, for unknown reasons, etc.
In spite of the police persecution and repression, the reaction could not destroy the trade unions; the dispersed unions would again re-form, maintain connection illegally, and the workers would take advantage of every opportunity to emerge from underground life and conduct their work openly. The first few years after the suppression of the 1905 revolution the trade unions were crushed to such an extent that they almost ceased to show signs of life. But, in 1912 and 1913 there was a boom in the labour movement, the trade unions again revived and the work once again went on feverishly until the beginning of the war. The war for "liberty" began in Russia with the annihilation of the still weak trade unions. Russia entered her second revolution without any trade union organisations.
II. The Revolution of 1917.
The overthrow of tsarism by the workers in revolt was the beginning of the feverish development and growth of the trade unions. While the armed struggle was proceeding in the streets of the capitals and the provincial towns, while the workers were organising their councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies, as pillars of support in their struggle, trade unions were being organised at the same time. On March 15th, 1917, twenty-two trade union boards met in Moscow and created their Council of Trade Unions. At the same time a Council of Trade Unions arose in Petrograd. Simultaneously with the organisations of trade unions according to trade and industry, inter-union organisations were being established which, in the first period of the Russian revolution, bore the name of "Central Bureaux."
The Councils of Workers' Delegates.
The need among the masses for organs to guide them in the economic struggle was so great and the unions were as yet so young and unorganised that the Councils of Workers' Delegates acted side by side with the unions, and often in substitution of them. The overthrow of the autocracy served also as the starting point of a grand economic offensive against the ​employers. There was not a single industry, not a single factory or large works where the workers from the first days of the revolution did not put forward a number of economic demands such as: increase of wages, reduction of the working day, payment for period of strike, etc. The Councils of Workers' Delegates organised Conciliation Boards, Dispute Committees, Labour Exchanges, established an 8-hour day and adopted repressive measures against employers. In a word, they played a very energetic -part in the economic struggle of the working class.
The Councils of Workers' Delegates, while often taking the initiative in the settlement of economic conflicts, also took the initiative in convening a national conference for the purpose of establishing an All-Russian centre. The first conference of 82 Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, which was held at the beginning of April in 1917, in Petrograd, passed a number of resolutions on the question of economic policy. The Conference carried resolutions on general labour policy, an 8-hour day, a minimum wage, freedom of organisation, conciliation boards, labour exchanges, factory inspection, control and organisation of industry, compulsory military service, importation of labour, social insurance and unemployment. All these resolutions bore the imprint of the moderate socialists, who at that time had the overwhelming majority in the Soviets. As the resolution on general labour policy says—"the struggle between labour and capital must conform with the conditions, of an as yet incomplete revolution and the menace of war from without which must define its form." The Conference advocated labour exchanges with equal representation of capital and labour, and declared for government pressure on the employers, thus striving, as far as possible, to smooth over the class antagonism of the first period of the Russian Revolution. In connection with industrial organisation the Conference accepted a resolution in which it called upon the workers energetically to build trade unions, recommended the organisation of local, regional and national organisations and considered it the immediate duty of the trade union movement to convene a national conference of trade unions. The Conference instructed the Department of Labour of the Petrograd Council of Workers' Delegates, together with the central bureaux of Petrograd and Moscow, to convene a national congress of trade unions. On April 17th an organising commission was set up, which sent out representatives to the largest centres ot Russia, and, on June 20th, towards the end of the fourth month of the Russian Revolution, the third national trade union conference met in Petrograd and laid the foundations for the All-Russian Trade Union movement.
Third Trade Union Conference, 1917.
The Third Trade Union Conference, for the first time in the history of Russia, drew together representatives from various parts of this enormous country. At this Conference there were present 220 delegates with power to vote and 27 in a consultative capacity; these represented 967 unions and 51 central bureaux with a total membership of 1,475,249. The business of the Conference was to lay the foundation of an All-Russian ​centre, to work out a uniform type of organisation, to indicate the general plan of work and to determine a uniform economic policy. The Conference only partly carried out its task, not only because the Russian trade union movement was still too young, but chiefly because the right wing of the socialist parties had the preponderance at the conference. This section led the trade union movement along the same path into which they were directing the general policy of the Russian Republic. Two blocks were competing at the Conference, the left—(the Bolsheviks and Internationalists), and the right—the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bund. The right block had 15 to 20 more votes than the left. Three questions particularly agitated the working class of Russia—the war, coalition with the bourgeoisie and the control of industry. None of these radical questions of the Russian Revolution were decided at this Conference and in so far as it gave any reply at all to them, that reply was anti-revolutionary. The left block proposed "to condemn every attempt to narrow down and subject the trade union movement to the interest of the ruling classes," to proclaim that the unions "remain foreign to every idea of class conciliation, of any possibility of co-operation with the bourgeoisie of its country," and to declare, in the name of the Conference, that the trade unions will only support that socialist party which will take action for the speediest liquidation of the war by means of a mass revolutionary struggle against the ruling class of its country. All these resolutions of the left block were rejected by the Conference as well as a resolution proposing to commence an energetic campaign for workers' control. Workers' control was understood as a strict subordination of the employers to organs of state regulation in which the majority is guaranteed to the labour organisations, and the granting to the factory committees the right of appointing controlling commissions to check and stop decisions and measures of the factory administration. Why did the Conference reject the proposals of the left block? Because the majority of the Conference held the view that it was the duty of the working class to seek agreement with the advanced sections of the bourgeoisie and, in order to secure this agreement, the greatest caution was necessary in handling questions affecting fundamental capitalist relations. The Conference declared for increased taxation of the profit-making class, tor the standardisation of prices of important articles, for control of industry, for direct State control in the most important branches of industry, for the strict control of banks, for compulsory State centralisation of industry, for the reorganisation of government regulating bodies and for securing in these a predominance of representatives of revolutionary democracy. But the Conference found it necessary to emphasise the fact that "the process of this control is too difficult and complicated for the proletariat to undertake the entire or even the greater part of this control." From this it follows that "the proletariat must not take upon itself alone the responsibility for the progress and outcome of the struggle with the economic disorganisation of the country, and that it is necessary to do everything possible to attract all the productive classes of the population to the solution of the economic problems confronting the country." These vague formul sufficiently show the desire of the majority ​of the Conference to continue the coalition with the bourgeoisie so "happily" commenced from the first days of the February revolution.
In spite of the theoretically incorrect light thrown by the third Conference on these questions and the bias towards coalition, this Conference played an important role in the unification of the trade unions of the whole of Russia. The Conference advocated the industrial principle of organisation, decided on the subordinatipn of the factory committees to the union, passed a number of resolutions on female labour, unemployment, conciliation boards, industrial courts, labour secretariats, factory inspection, municipal policy of the trade unions, national sections, educational activity, proletarian co-operative societies, trade union press, 8-hour day, and, finally, established an All-Russian centre of the Trade Union movement: the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions. Much in, these resolutions is incorrect; as, for instance, when the Conference advocated joint labour exchanges, participation of the unions in the establishment of an unemployment fund instead of State insurance against unemployment; but, nevertheless, these resolutions were of tremendous importance tor the Russian Trade Union movement, because whether good or bad, they gave a certain summing up of the economic struggle and because they were the first resolutions of a real All-Russian Conference.
The Economic Struggle Reopens.
The Third Conference, while stating a number of economic problems, failed to indicate a most vital thing, viz., how to put these resolutions into practice and, at the same time, maintain a cautious attitude towards the other "productive classes" of Russia. In the meantime the Russian bourgeoisie, thrown into confusion in the first weeks of the February revolution, and retreating before the sudden pressure of the working masses, rapidly began to organise and seized the most important strategic points in the class struggle—the government institutions and the State machinery. Before the Revolution the Russian bourgeoisie was excellently organised, the manufacturers' Societies, the Chambers of Commerce, Manufacturers' Councils, Bankers' Councils, Syndicates, trusts, etc., all these were created long before the Revolution and all these were put into use against the workers from the very first days of the February Revolution. The economic battle surged round questions like those of taking on and dismissal of workers, 8-hour day, sickness insurance funds, increase in wages, rights of the factory committees; and their control over factory administrations. Making concessions in politics, agreeing to the most democratic electoral rights and the proclamation of all liberties, the bourgeoisie, with all the greater energy, fought every inch of the ground for their economic rights and privileges. Not being able to defeat the proletariat in open battle, the bourgeoisie commenced a policy which, in Russia, accquired the name of sabotage, the essence of which consisted in deliberately disorganising factories and other undertakings for the purpose of driving the workers to starvation. The revolutionary introduction of an 8-hour day roused the mad hatred of the employers, but, nevertheless, they were compelled to reconcile ​themselves to this. But under no circumstances could they reconcile themselves to the appointment and dismissal of workers by the factory committees and the control of factories. On the outcome of the struggle they staked their all. This was a violation of the most fundamental right of the employers and the sharpest conflicts during the course of the first period of the Russian Revolution revolved round the question as to who was the master of the factory. The employers were led by the metal works owners. In vain did the Provisional Government, in the sharpest period of the social conflict, attempt to reconcile the hostile sides. When the Minister for Trade and Industry asked the representatives of the management of the Bogolovsky Mining region (Ural) where a conflict was proceeding between the workers and the administration, whether the management were willing to dismiss employees and workers through the conciliation boards, the representative of the employers, Zeidler, declared that "the management does not and will not recognise any committee or board; it is the master of the works and therefore will do as it desires. As to the State Public Control the industrialists do not and will not recognise any such thing." The metal works owners were not alone in this aggressive attitude towards the workers. The union of Baku petroleum owners declared that the masters would never agree to the hiring and dismissing of workers through the factory committees. The same declaration was made by the union of the united industries of the central industrial regions, who would not even permit the thought that the textile workers could control the uncrowned cloth kings. The attitude of the mine owners' union of the South of Russia and other employers' organisation was no less stern against the "criminal claims" of the workers.
The Employers take the Offensive.
In August, 1917, an All-Russia conference of employers' organisations took place in Petrograd on the initiative of the Petrograd manufacturers' association, at which the largest employers' associations representing 2,000 businesses and 1,500,000 employees were represented. At this conference an All Russia League of Manufacturers' Associations was formed. The object of this new League, as Mikhin, the chairman of the council of the metal industry conference, explained, was to "unite the employers in defence of their interests," and to establish "guarantees for the execution of the orders of the League by its branches." Bimanoff, the chairman of the conference, declared that the league will work out "guiding rules for the abolition of interference of the factory committees in factory management."
The employers and their organisations raised their heads particularly high after the defeat of the Petrograd workers in July, 1917. This defeat gave birth to the conviction in the employers' circles that the most dangerous period of the Russian Revolution was over and that it was possible to pass from the defensive to the offensive. July, August, September and October were months of colossal economic conflicts, when hundreds of thousands of workers (the leather workers of the Moscow Government, the miners of the Don Basin, the textile ​workers of Ivanovo-Vosnessensk, etc.) put forward their social demands. The attempts of the Provisional Coalition Government to find some middle course of conciliation only served to rouse greater feeling on both sides.
Disillusionment with Coalition Government.
The sharpening of the economic conflict long before the October revolution confronted the trade unions with the necessity for a violent overthrow of the Coalition Government. The largest unions—the metal workers, textile workers—the chief centres of the labour movement—Petrograd, Moscow, and Ivanovo-Vosnessensk—had already at the third conference spoken out for a determined revolutionary struggle against the coalition. When in August, 1917, the Kerensky Government called the State Convention where an attempt was made at fraternisation between the Social Democrats, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries on one side and the Liberals on the other, the Moscow Trade Union Council was the initiator of the strike of protest against the continuation of the comedy. 500,000 Moscow workers struck and hurled their battle-cry at the Provisional Government "All power to the Soviets." The Ural conference of Trade Unions, embracing 145,000 workers, passed a strong resolution of protest against "the displacement of the Revolutionary Government or Russia by the Moscow convention of the counter-revolutionary forces of the country." In connection with the Korniloff revolt, a series of demonstrations of the largest trade unions took place demanding the immediate break-up of the coalition, workers' control and all power to the Soviets. The Petrograd Council of trade unions asserting that the provisional government "are sacrificing the interests of peace and of the masses to the Allied and Russian imperialists" demanded at the end of August the establishment of a special committee for the defence of Petrograd against counter revolution. The Moscow metal workers declared that "there are no separate conflicts of metal workers, textile workers and leather workers, there is only one great national conflict between labour and capital," and the All-Russia conference of textile workers which took place in September promised "the fullest support to the Soviets in their struggle for power, for only such power can save the country from economic and political ruin and improve the position of the working class."
Trade Unions Moving Left.
The extent to which the accentuation of the economic struggle forced the trade unions to the left, is seen from the fact that at the Democratic Convention which took place in Petrograd in September nine-tenths of the trade union delegates- representing 1,893,100 workers, were against the coalition and that 70 of the 117 delegates belonged to the Bolshevist party. The trade unions, their local organs, the factory committees, played an important part in the sharpening of the class struggle. The whole of September and October, 1917, passed amidst sharp conflicts between the unions and the employers during which the workers put their resolution into force by means of ​their own red guards. Thus when the conflict between the Leather Workers' Union and the Leather Manufacturers' Association dragged on in many factories, the employers were driven away and the factories seized by the factory committees. On the 5th of October, 1917, the Moscow Regional Metal Workers' Conference, at which 138,000 workers were represented demanded "an energetic campaign for a radical change in the basis of economic policy, the nationalisation of the larger syndicated petroleum, coal, sugar and metal industries, also of the Banks and of the means of transport." The Conference further recommended to carry out and to "encourage the initiative in the localities for the speediest realisation of workers' control of industry." Everyone can understand what to "encourage initiative for workers' control" meant in this sharp class struggle. Affairs reached the stage of violent and immediate introduction of workers' control. On the 9th of October 1,000 delegates, representing 200,000 textile workers in the Moscow region, promised support to the Soviets and called them to determined action in fighting against the sabotage of the employers and the treacherous conduct of the provisional government. The situation became more complicated. Here and there local strikes broke out which led to nothing. The excellently organised employers deliberately provoked the workers to local strikes in order to defeat them separately.
In the factories a fight was proceeding for the right to control the economic resources of the country. The working class of Russia, by the logic of the class struggle, had come right up to the conquest of government power. The social tangle could not be unravelled, it could only be cut, and this was done by the October revolution.
The October Revolution.
The furious contest between the trade unions and the employers, as we saw, proceeded in every factory and works long before the October revolution. The trade unions and their organs, the factory committees, convinced themselves by practice and experience of the necessity of a violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie. It was for that reason that they were in the front ranks of the battle in the October revolution against the provisional government and the coalition.
The unions and the factory committees, formed a red guard. They posted armed detachments for fighting against the government as well as for the protection of the factories. The unions and the Councils of Trade Unions had their representatives in the military revolutionary committees, their premises were used by the staffs of revolutionary troops, (the staff of the Moscow revolutionary troops were for some time situated on the premises of the Moscow Metal Workers' Union); they formed red cross detachments and were the first to place their technical staff and machinery at the disposal of the new Soviet government for the management of the State.
In those great days of severe and sharp fighting the trade unions had to fight not only against cossacks, junkers and the bourgeoisie, but even against several trade unions which at that decisive moment stood on the side of the Provisional Govern​ment. The overwhelming majority of the trade unions were forthe October revolution, only an insignificant section being against it. All the unions uniting factory workers like the metal workers, textile workers and leather workers were for the October revolution, while the commercial and bank employees' unions were against it. In those unions which united higher and lower employees like railwaymen and post and telegraph workers, the lower grade employees were for the October revolution, while the office staff and the higher officials were against it. The only exception of a purely proletarian union being against the October revolution were the printers, who came out actively in defence of the Provisional Government and the "freedom of the Press," understanding by, that the freedom of the bourgeoisie and government press to continue at the most acute moment of armed conflict to pervert the consciousness of the masses.
The Fight Against Sabotage.
The struggle between the workers and the employees assumed an extremely sharp form particularly when the notorious sabotage of the officials began which expressed itself in stopping work in all government institutions and the deliberate disorganisation of the State and administrative technical machinery. Here the struggle went on not merely between unions, but within the government and commercial employees' unions, where the workers and the lower staff concentrated all their efforts to restart work in the departments. The word sabotage became the most shameful word among the Russian proletariat, because the strike of the officials was practically directed against the working class and its frantic efforts to extricate itself from the political and economic cul-de-sac. The unions were confronted with the question whether strikes were permissible in a period when power was passing into the hands of the working class, and the unions through their largest organisations answered—no. The Moscow Council of Trade Unions at the beginning of November, 1917, carried a resolution which says "the unions consider that while a proletarian government is in power a political strike is to be considered as sabotage against which the most determined measures must be taken. To take the place of workers refusing to work, for that reason is not blacklegging, but a means of fighting sabotage and counter revolution." The trade union movement as a whole adopted the same point of view that no strike directed against the socialist revolution and its upholders, the working class, could be permitted. A strike of employees and officials usually began when a commissary of the new Soviet government appeared. The strikes, morally and materially supported by the partisans of the overthrown Kerensky government, rendered the relations between the technical intellectuals or employees and the workers so strained that even at the present moment there are traces of estrangement between the workers and the employees, the latter being distrusted. Thus, from the first days of the October revolution, the trade unions had to submit the question of the right to strike for reconsideration. The experience of the struggle led the Russian trade unions to the following practical conclusion:—to strike against the bourgeoisie is the sacred ​right of the proletariat in its fight against the exploiters. To strike against the workers' revolution is an act of hostility against the working class and is therefore a crime against Russian and international socialism. The strikes of the bourgeoisie and the backward sections of the workers against the proletariat and its authority will never be permitted by the trade unions. This was the first lesson of the October revolution.
Back to Work.
As for the strike wave roused by the October revolution itself and directed against the bourgeoisie as a means of destroying the bourgeois apparatus, immediately the victory of the workers became apparent the leading organs of the trade unions called upon the workers to set the factories and works going immediately. In its manifesto of the 28th October, the Petrograd Council of Trade Unions declared that "strikes and demonstrations of workers in Petrograd only do harm to the working class," and proposed "that all economic and political strikes immediately cease and that everybody commence work and carry it on in complete order." The same happened in other towns and particularly in Moscow, where the Council of Trade Unions on October 28th called upon the workers to strike and to armed battle; but on November 4th, as soon as the struggle ended, it proposed to the workers immediately to end the strike called out by the active participation of the workers in the armed conflict, and to return to the factories and commence work.
III. Trade Unions in the New Social Order.
The October revolution was victorious under the battle-cries of "peace," "land" and "workers' control," The demand for peace and land we can understand, but what is this "workers' control," which was one of the most popular demands on the eve of the October revolution? The idea of workers' control arose in the first days of the February revolution. It aimed at subjecting the whole private, commercial, industrial and financial apparatus to the control and influence of the labour organisations. It meant that the factory committees and the responsible union would keep under observation the state of the factories, the supply of raw material and the financial side of the businesses, and would control the quantity of materials that came in and went out of the factories. This was the first attempt in history to limit the independent authority of the employer in his undertaking.
The Demand for Control.
The idea of workers' control arose directly out of the struggle of the workers with the bourgeoisie as a weapon against the deliberate attempts to bring the factories to a standstill and disorganise production for the purpose of defeating the proletariat by starvation, and thus retard the revolution. In practice, workers' control meant that the factory committee in ​every factory elected a special control commission which would vigilantly watch the management of the employers, and, in the event of the employers declaring that there was no raw material, no money, etc., the workers would check, the correctness of the statement by the books and by reference to the banking accounts. The workers would veto any suspicious operation, and if the employers continued their scheming the workers would compel them to submit to their will by force of arms. In many places the employers fled from their factories and deliberately concealed themselves, hoping by this means to bring industry to a standstill, but, in such cases, the workers took the factories into their own hands and continued working.
This form of attack on capital acquired the definition of "workers' control." On the eve of the revolution the introduction of control was carried out without any plan and was quite spontaneous. For that reason on the morrow after the October revolution the Trade Unions were confronted with the difficult task of introducing a uniform system of labour control and of working out a practical programme of action.
The question was complicated by the severity of the struggle in the factories, and, in several places the tendency was observed for the workers to drive the owners from the factories and take the latter in their own hands. In place of a single owner there was a collective ownership represented by the workers employed in that factory. From the first days of the revolution the trade unions put up a determined resistance against this disintegration o the national industries. "The factories and works," we said, "are the property of the working class as a whole and not the property of the workers of a given factory, and for that reason workers should under no circumstances assume ownership of any factory." Labour control is only a part of State regulation of industry and therefore all local control committees must become the agents for carrying out the general economic plan and uniform economic policy.
The Decree of Workers' Control.
Workers' control in the form that it developed directly after the October revolution was not yet the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, but merely a considerable limitation of the rights of the owners over the means of production and exchange. This is evident from the following paragraphs of the decree on workers' control which was drawn up in conjunction with the trade unions and issued on November 27th, 1917.
The Workers' Control organs have the right to supervise production, establish the minimum output of the undertaking and take measures to ascertain the cost of production of articles.
The Workers' Control organs have the right to control all the business correspondence of the undertaking; owners of undertakings concealing correspondence are liable to prosecution. Commercial secrets are abolished. Owners are obliged to submit their books and accounts for the current year as well as for previous years to the control committees. The decisions of the Workers' Control organs are binding upon the owners, and can only be altered by an order of the higher Workers' Control organs.
From this decree, issued directly after the October Revolution, it is evident that the task of control, as it was formu​lated in the resolution on "Workers' Control" at the first Trade Union Congress, was to "put an end to autocracy in the sphere of economics in the same way as it had been abolished in politics," from which it follows that "Workers' control is not tantamount to the socialisation of the means of production and exchange but a preliminary step towards it."
This cautious approach and estimation of workers' control, the greatest act in the history of the world, arises from the practical estimation of economic possibilities by the trade unions, and the consciousness that socialism cannot be constructed in a week or a month, but is the work of long years and decades. A wedge had been driven into the capitalist system of production: the working class had approached right up to production and its secrets and it was proved that "constitutional monarchy" was impossible and that however complicated a modern factory may be the owner is a useless cog in the mechanism. This is the second logical conclusion which arises from the October Revolution.
New Problems of the Trade Unions.
The October Revolution converted the working class into the dominant class and the bourgeoisie into the subject class this completely overturned the former relations between the workers and the employers and confronted the trade unions with new problems. Directly after the October Revolution the economic strikes came to an end. The workers formulated their demands and submitted them to the trade unions and, upon the trade unions sanctioning them, these were put into force by the State. If the employer refused to submit, then prisons and other means of compulsion, prepared by the bourgeoisie itself, were brought into use. For the first time in the history of humanity a government intervened in strikes in favour of the workers, imprisoned employers for failing to satisfy the demands of the trade unions and by means of decrees introduced wage rates worked out by the trade unions, and confiscated businesses of obstinate factory owners. The October Revolution did not merely imply a transfer of political power to the proletariat but also the transfer of economic power into the hands of the working class. All former relations were destroyed. The trade unions developing on the basis of capitalist relations and as fighting organs were converted into part of the machinery of the labour government (resolutions of the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party), and this compelled the trade unions to reorganise their ranks, to change their tactics and to put forward questions which have never before confronted trade unions of other countries.
First All Russia Trade Union Congress.
These new problems, arising out of the commencing social revolution were formulated by the first All Russia Trade Union Congress which met in the beginning of January, 1918, in Petrograd. In the first place the trade unions had to define: (1) their attitude towards the October revolution, (2) whether the organised proletariat could preserve neutrality in the acute ​class war, (3) what should the workers support—bourgeois democracy or labour democracy, i.e., the Constituent Assembly or the Soviets and, finally, what were the practical problems confronting the labour unions in the period of proletarian dictatorship.
The First Trade Union Congress held the view that the victory of the workers and the poorest peasants in October "leads us simultaneously towards the beginning of international socialist revolution and to the victory, over the capitalist system of production." Everything else follows from this fundamental view of the character of the October Revolution.
Resolution Supporting Soviet Government.
"The idea of 'neutrality' of the trade unions"—says this resolution—"was and remains a bourgeois idea. There is and there can be no neutrality in the great historical fight between revolutionary socialism and its opponents. Support of bourgeois policy and betrayal of the interests of the working class was always concealed beneath the mask of neutrality. Least of all in Russia, a country going through a great, revolution and which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, could the trade unions be 'neutral.' All the questions arising in the process of the revolution (Constituent Assembly, nationalisation of Banks, the fight against the bourgeois press, the repudiation of loans, etc.), directly affects the interests of the trade union movement. In all these questions the trade unions must give their entire support to the policy of the Socialist Soviet Government, as conducted by the Council of Peoples Commissaries."
By this resolution the Congress, in the name of two and a half million workers, firmly and undeviatingly stood for the soviet system, for labour democracy as against bourgeois democracy, and thus linked the fate of the trade union movement in Russia with the fate of the soviet government and the socialist revolution. Expressing itself in favour of the dictatorship of the proletariat and for "the close co-operation and inseparable connection between the trade unions and the proletarian political organisations and, chiefly with the Soviet of Workers' Delegates" the first conference resolved that "the centre of gravity of the trade union movement at the present moment must be transferred to the sphere of national administration and organisation. The Trade Unions must undertake the work of organising production and restoring the undermined forces of the country." How did the Unions carry out this resolution? By the creation of special economic organs in conjunction with the Soviet, organisation of workers' control, estimation and distribution of labour power, participation in the transference of war industry to peace production, by fighting against sabotage, by the introduction or obligatory labour, etc. The problems submitted by the Congress to the Trade Unions of Russia were—organisation of labour and organisation of production.
Resolution on Workers' Control.
The First Congress paid particular and detailed attention to the question of workers' control and the regulation of ​(23) industry. In this sphere the Russian proletariat had to cut a new path, for history knows no example of the organisation of national economy being approached from the point of view of society as a whole and not in the interests of individuals or groups of exploiters. The First Congress understood perfectly well that the economic problem could not be solved at a single blow and it definitely indicated the road which the trade unions should follow. The Congress emphasised the fact that "workers' control is inseparably connected with the general system of regulation of national economy, that it is the basis of State regulation, that the unions must carry out the idea of centralised workers' control and the merging of the small controlling units into larger organs which correspond to the modern methods of production as well as to the actual structure of labour organisations." In the resolution on the regulation of industry the Congress advocated the syndication and the trustification of the most important branches of industry like coal, petroleum, iron, chemicals and also transport, as a preparatory stage to the nationalisation of industry. The regulation of national economy in the interests of the whole country can only be carried out under the guidance of a class whom history has chosen for this responsible task, i.e., the proletariat. The part to be played by the trade unions in this great work of the reconstruction of society consists not only in the defence of the interests of the working class but in preparing it for the role of industrial organisers during the transition from private monopoly to State monopoly, from the latter to nationalisation and from that last to socialism.
The Development of Factory Committees.
In defining the role and the functions of the trade unions in the organisation of production it was, necessary to pay very serious attention to the factory committees and their role in the general system of our economic organisation. The factory committees arose in Russia in the first days of the February revolution and were the first organisations created in the struggle of the workers against their employers. These organisations embraced all the workers in a given factory, whether they were members of the union or not, and from their very rise, played a double role. On the one hand they served as a support to the Soviet of Workers' Delegates, carrying out the Soviet's political instructions in the factories and, on the other hand, they settled conflicts and conducted strikes, etc., thus taking the place of the trade union in the first period of the revolution and, later, becoming the nuclei of the Russian Trade Union movement.
The factory committees chiefly performed the functions of political and economic control and, at the time of the October Revolution, had to bear the responsibility for the great organising and administrative work. For that reason in the first period of the October Revolution the question of the factory committees became very acute. Among certain sections of the factory committees the opinion began to grow that the trade unions had outlived their time and that they could be supplanted by the factory committees. In several towns like Petrograd, Odessa, Samara, Kiev, etc., central councils of factory ​committees arose which began to act as parallel bodies to the responsible trade union council. New economic organisations were thus formed the growth of which would inevitably lead to a fratricidal war between the trade unions and the factory committees. On the other hand, as the trade unions grew and embraced an ever larger number of factories, the factory committees became elected organs of the organised members of the particular union. This eased the way to the subordination of the factory committees to the unions, as decided at the third conference of Trade Unions in June, 1917, and finally confirmed at the First All-Russian Congress which decided that "the factory committees must become the local organs of the union."
After the first Trade Union Congress the Central Councils of Factory Committees were abolished and the factory committees became units of the union, carrying out the instructions, and resolutions of the centre.
Regulations on Factory Committees.
In the period immediately prior to the October Revolution, when the central organs of national economy were just being established, the factory committees, in many cases, undertook the management of the factories. But that only lasted as long as the corresponding central industrial management organ had not yet been established. After this the factory committees had their representatives in the factory management boards which were usually composed of the representatives of the trade unions, the Council of National Economy and the factory committees. In the middle of 1918 the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions dratted special "Regulations on Factory Committees." According to these regulations the factory committees:
(a) Undertake, on the instruction of the Union, all measures necessary to unite all workers and employees of a given factory into one industrial organisation;
(b) Carry out strict proletarian discipline among the workers and employees as set forth by the Industrial Union;
(c) See that all measures and regulations of the Labour Commissariat, directed towards the defence and protection of labour are carried out, and devise means of improving labour conditions;
(d) See to the execution by the factory of all instructions and measures of the Council of National Economy and the Industrial Union directed towards raising the productivity as well as maintaining the normal progress of labour;
(e) Keep a strict watch on the exact and mutual carrying out of wages agreements and standards of productivity;
(f) Carry out workers' control to the fullest extent;
(g) Undertake the supply of articles of primary necessity to the workers within, the limits of the Food Department's regulations and, for this purpose, enter into, relations with the necessary organisations for establishing public restaurants, shops, etc.;
(h) Establish in connection with the factories and under the guidance of the Union, schools, libraries, reading-rooms, people's palaces, children's homes, playgrounds and kindergartens, etc.;
(i) carry out the decisions of the courts of honour and the punishments imposed by them in accordance with the regulations and wages agreements;
(j) Participate in the acceptance and discharge of workers and employees in accordance with the decree on labour exchanges and the instructions of the Trade Union.
As industry became nationalised and chief committees for managing the nationalised factories were established we passed over from workers' control to workers' management and faith this transition, the functions of the factory committees in the sphere of control of production ceased because the union as a whole and not separate sections of it took part in the administration. As a result of 2½ years' development of the trade union movement, the Third Trade Union Congress, summing up the experience of the dual functions of the factory committee resolved that "the factory committee must definitely be fixed as the local nucleus of the trade union with analogous trade union functions in so far as it concerns the responsibility it has to bear towards the higher organs of the union and completely abstain from interfering ,in the work of administering the factory; in order to abolish parallelism in administrative and trade union organs in the, factory all industrial committees, in connection with the factory committees are to be dissolved."
This resolution, establishing the factory management board as the sole authority in the factory, finally subordinated the factory committee to the union and, in this manner, rounded off a complete period of development of the Russian trade union movement which commenced with the factory committees being independent of the unions, went through a process of administration of the factories by the factory committees, participation of the factory committee in the management—and consequently their subordination to the councils of national economy; and finally binding the factory committee to the union and converting it into a purely trade union organ.
Trade Unionism and Dictatorship.
The First All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions, laying down the general line of revolutionary policy and the necessity for the closest co-operation and inseparable connection with the Soviets of Workers' Delegates, came up against one of the most difficult questions in the theory and practice of the trade union movement, i.e., the role of trade unions in the period of proletarian dictatorship. What Is the dictatorship of the proletariat? It is a definite labour system of government, having for its object to destroy the bourgeois capitalist relations and the state machinery created by them, to crush the resistance of the exploiters and to prepare the conditions and foundations for socialist construction. Between capitalism and socialism there is a distinct historical period during which the oppressed class, taking advantage of the new government machinery which it has created, forcibly establishes new social industrial relations, and, to the extent that these new relations are strengthened, the State power of the transition period gradually dies out; for socialist society is a non-class society and where there are no classes there is no State. Consequently, to the extent that we depart from capitalism and approach to socialism the state as such will disappear and, as Engels wrote, it will be placed in the museum of history. The state will remain a mere apparatus for the registration of distribution and production, serving the economic needs of socialist society.
​The soviet is an organ of proletarian dictatorship, and as a definite form of state, will disappear with the complete victory of socialism.
The "Nationalisation" of Trade Unions.
But what will be the fate of the trade unions? The trade unions have become converted from fighting organisations against capital into organs of socialist construction, and to the extent that we advance from capitalism to communism the centre of gravity of the work of the union will be transferred to the sphere of organisation and administration. The main task of organising labour and production lies upon the trade unions and the more the trade unions are able to cope with this task, the more it will become merged in national economy and become part and parcel of it. In a completely developed socialist society the trade unions as fighting organisations in the class war will disappear and their place will be taken by an apparatus for registration, distribution and public production.
But where will this apparatus for registering, distributing and producing in socialist society come from? What organisation will create it? Evidently it will be created in the transitional periods by the trade unions and the Soviets. And its importance will grow in proportion to the victory of the social revolution and the strengthening of the new industrial relations. Thus, the Soviets of workers' delegates and the trade unions jointly create in the transitional period an organ for managing production (Councils of National Economy and the chief Committees for the management of nationalised undertakings). These organs, however, lose their specific character as fast as we advance to socialism: the whole work of the Soviets and the trade unions becomes concentrated upon the organisation of labour and production, but their industrial functions disappear. The trade unions and the Soviet economic organs merge into one another; a single economic machinery grows out of it swallowing both unions and Soviets, thus being the synthesis of all the organisations created by the proletariat. Socialism emerges in its perfect form of organisation. This perspective of the development and the rebirth of the existing proletarian organisations gives rise to the idea of "nationalising" the trade unions and many comrades regarded this possibility as meaning the immediate subordination of the trade unions to the soviets and their formal inclusion in the machinery of the soviet government. The first All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions which advocated "the closest co-operation and inseparable connection between the trade unions and the Soviets of workers' delegates" declared in its fundamental resolution that "in the process of development which has been, outlined, the trade unions will inevitably be converted into organs of socialist government, participation in which will be obligatory for all persons engaged in any given industry."
This resolution was taken by some comrades to mean immediate subordination of the unions to the State; and the second All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions, held in January, 1919, on the question of the character of the relations between the soviet organs and the trade unions and their gradual merging declared:
"The task of socialising all means of production and the organisation of society on a new socialist basis demands stubborn, prolonged work on the reconstruction of the whole government machine, the creation of new organs of control and regulation of production and consumption resting upon the organised initiative of the masses of the workers themselves.
"This compels the trade unions to take a more active and energetic part in the Soviets, by direct participation in all the state organs, by organising mass proletarian control over their activities, by carrying out separate tasks which might confront the soviet government through their organisations, by cooperating in the reconstruction of various state departments and by the gradual substitution of them by their own organisations by means of fusing the organs of the union with those of the state.
"It would be a mistake, however, in the present stage of development of trade unions with the, as yet, imperfect state organisation, immediately to convert the unions into state organs and to merge the former into the latter or for the unions arbitrarily to usurp the functions of the state. The whole process of complete fusion of the trade unions with the state organs (the process which we call nationalisation of trade unions) must take place as the inevitable result of their joint close and harmonious working and the preparation by the trade unions of the broad masses of the workers for the task of managing the state machine and all the administrative organs."
The perspective outlined by the second congress was subjected to a new test: a year and three months of stern civil war passed and whatever the trials of the trade unions, with the exception of an insignificant minority they fought shoulder to shoulder with the soviet government against the Russian and world counter-revolution. It was this organic connection with the soviet government which the third All-Russia Congress advanced in the first instance: "The trade unions in Soviet Russia"—says the first resolution—"practically became an inseparable part of the soviet system, a necessary supplement and support of the proletarian dictatorship of the Soviets." The second important resolution of the congress with reference to organisation lays it down that "the trade unions are the fundamental basis of the proletarian state, the sole organisers of labour in the process of production and the chief tool in economic construction." These two definitions give an exhaustive description of the trade unions in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. The trade unions are the foundation and support of the soviet state—a necessary supplement to the organs of proletarian dictatorship—the soviets; the chief tool of economic construction; and the only organisers of labour in the process of production. These are the functions and the place of the trade unions in the proletarian state based on thirty months experience of joint work and struggle and this experience was registered by the resolutions of the third All-Russia Congress.
The point of view outlined above is not shared by the whole of the Russian trade union movement: from the beginning of the October Revolution, a tendency existed inside the Russian trade union movement which put forward the demand for the independence of the trade union movement. The theory of independence was specially urged at trade union congresses by the mensheviks. What is the essence of this theory? What is the meaning of independence and of whom should the unions remain independent? The theory of independence is based on the denial of the socialist character of our revolution. The supporters of independence argue that a bourgeois democratic revolution is taking place in Russia. The government, whatever the individual intentions of its representatives may be, is a government of the bourgeoisie; the state and the whole state apparatus reflects the bourgeois origin of the revolution, is in fact a bourgeois apparatus and for that reason the labour organisations must be made independent of the state. The same relations must exist between the trade unions in Russia and the Soviet government as now exist between the labour organisations and present day bourgeois democratic governments: autonomy, independence, collective agreements, freedom of class struggle, right to strike, maintainance of strike funds for that purpose, etc., etc. Such is the theory of independence as it was elucidated at the first All-Russian Congress of trade unions and was further developed by the supporters of this point of view.
Trade Union Independence or Class Struggle.
Which unions in Russia adopted this theory? First of all, all the employees unions (commercial clerks, bank clerks and civil servants) then a section of the printers whose work was always so closely associated with the bourgeois press, that the abolition of the bourgeois press aroused in them a prolonged and strong opposition. For all that, the proletarian unions were against that theory. Thus the very character of the unions putting forward this theory compels us to devote particular attention to this "independence" and to decipher its class meaning. First of all, is the premise of this argument correct? What is revolution in general and a socialist revolution in particular? Revolution is the violent seizure of power in the interests of a new class. A revolution is "great," "brought to a successful end," when a new class comes to power which in its own interests reconstructs economic relations and turns all the powers of the state] to the service of the interests of the new class. A revolution is regarded as a minor or incomplete revolution when power is transferred to the hands of a new social section of the same class. Is it the bourgeoisie that is in power after the October Revolution? Obviously not, for, at the present moment, it is the oppressed class. But, perhaps, it is the peasantry that is in power in Russia? Even this is refuted by facts for if the peasants were in power, they would never have abolished private property or established State monopoly of articles of primary consumption in general and of corn in particular. Consequently, there remains only one class, ​the proletariat, whose interests coincide with the development of the social revolution—the only class that can bring about the socialisation of the means of production and exchange. If that is so, what revolution have we in Russia, a bourgeois or a socialist revolution? If it is a socialist revolution then, how can there be room for strike funds, strikes and other weapons and methods of the class struggle which the proletariat employed against its class enemies? Against whom will the proletarian trade union conduct the class struggle? Against their own proletarian government, against themselves?
We see, therefore, that the theory of independence is based wholly upon the old capitalist relations and that it arose out of a failure to understand the epoch through which we are at present living, and reflects in the minds of certain categories of workers the contradictions of the present epoch in which the new social relations are still surrounded by capitalist forms. The expiring capitalism still clings to certain categories of workers who more than any others were intellectually subjected to its influence.
The theory of independence is not a narrow trade union theory, but a complete political philosophy. It this is a bourgeois revolution, consequently, one must adopt a different economic policy towards the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, it is. necessary to establish all bourgeois "liberties," the Constituent Assembly, in a word, all the "democratic" forms for the maximum development of bourgeois democratic society and a "healthy regulated" capitalism. As the revolution developed, the theory of independence lost its pure and consistent form and at the Third Congress of Trade Unions appeared in a new form: the mensheviks, recognising that a socialist revolution was proceeding, supported the argument for independence in view of the slow development of the world and, particularly, the Russian revolution. They said that the socialist revolution is developing very slowly, particularly in Russia, where there is a numerous peasantry and it is therefore necessary that the proletarian trade unions should be independent of the Soviet State which, while socialistic, is nevertheless giving way to the influence of the middle classes.
Decline of the Opposition.
What is the role and the strength of this tendency in Russia? First of all it is necessary to point out that even the Clerks' Union, which at one time supported the independents, is gradually freeing itself from their influence. At the last congress of this union the independents numbered only 32 per cent. of the delegates. Their position is just as deplorable even among the printers. At the last National Congress of Printers, which took place in July, 1919, the majority of delegates were communists.
The general decline of the influence of the mensheviks and therefore of the independents in the Russian trade union movement can be seen from the following table:
| | Total Delegates. | Mensheviks, right soc.-rev. and sympathisers. | Per cent. |
| 3rd Conference (June 1917) | 2220 | 120 | 55.5 |
| Democratic Convention (Sept. 1917) | 117 | 45 | 88.4 |
| 1st Trade Union Congress (Jan. 1918) | 416 | 66 | 21.3 |
| 2nd Trade Union Congress (Jan. 1919) | 748 | 29 | 9.4 |
| 3rd Trade Union Congress (April 1920) | 1229 | 48 | 6.8 |
Thus the influence of the independents fell from year to year and it is necessary to point out that at the second congress 37 delegates voted for their resolutions and at the Third Congress only 31. This means that the few non-party representatives deserted them while the Congress proceeded. The powerful party that in the first period of the revolution had a majority in the Soviets and Trade Unions was reduced to nothing. The organised proletariat of Russia marched past the anti-socialist theories and practice of "independence."
The Control of Industry.
One of the most important points in the theory of independence was the relations of the unions to the controlling organs of national economy. The question was: should the trade unions participate in the organisation of industry? To this the independents replied that it was necessary to participate but to refuse all responsibility, that the functions of the unions in entering these organs was chiefly to protect labour. As we have seen, however, the Russian trade union movement, from the first days of the October Revolution, took quite a different road. It not only did not avoid responsibility but sought it, taking upon itself the responsibility for the organisation of all the controlling and administrative organs of industry. As soon as the decree on workers' control was issued, the trade unions, on the basis of representation of the All-Russian Industrial Unions, created a National Council of Workers' Control, whose business it was to unite all the work of organisation and control in the localities, but, from the very beginning the unions and the organs which they created arrived at the necessity of creating wider organisations in which control would only form a part of the work, and the National Council of Workers' Control thus became converted into a supreme Council of National Economy which daily widened the sphere of its activities. The Supreme Council of National Economy was created by the Trade Unions together with the Soviet authorities and its separate branches as well as the newly created organs, arising because of the machinery becoming more and more complicated, are being constructed on the basis of representation of trade unions.
The Machinery of Control.
The Supreme Council of National Economy is composed of dozens of central organs which manage the nationalised industry, and there is not one of them which has been set up without an agreement between the Executive of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the Executive of the respective trade union being arrived at.
​Thus, the Committee for State Building and Construction is formed by agreement with the Builders' Union. The Chief Administration of the nationalised textile undertakings is formed by agreement with the All-Russian Textile Workers' Union, the Chief Administration of the nationalised leather undertakings by agreement with the Leather Workers' Union, the United State Engineering Department, a section of the Supreme Council of National Economy, is formed by agreement with the Metal Workers' Union. Two and a half years' experience of revolution convinced the trade unions that it was necessary to (1) construct a uniform plan of industrial administration, (2) send their representatives to these organs without interfering in the administrative and technical work of the undertaking, (3) give the elected factory board the necessary authority and ask its local organs to support the board's work; (4) send, through responsible officials of the administrative organs, periodical reports to the respective trade unions, (5) call periodical joint meetings of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Supreme Council of National Economy for the consideration of fundamental questions affecting economic policy, (6) centralise the administration of industry with a view to a rational utilisation of all forces of production, (7) strive towards the simplification and the abolition of parallelism in administration, (8) combat parallelism arising from attempts of economic organs to assume the functions of a trade union, (9) reduce the number of members in the collegiate boards, and to hold every member individually responsible, (10) resort to individual management of factories wherever this is considered useful, (11) define the exact functions of the various trade union organs and their relations to the Soviet Government organs, and finally, (12) subordinate the narrow trade union interests to the interests of national economic construction.
These fundamental rules, the result of great experience, lay at the bottom of the whole economic policy of the trade unions. The trade unions do not assume the management of industry, they are not the sole organisers of production: the whole nationalised industry is managed by the state organs based on the representation of the trade unions which "by entering into the Soviet organisation become converted more and more into the fundamental basis of the Soviet Economic system." (Resolution of 9th Congress of Russian Communist Party).
The Organisation of Labour.
Production taken as a whole included the organisation of labour, for labour is the most important factor in production. It may be said that all that the Russian Trade Unions did in organising production was to create organs in conjunction with the Soviets, but this cannot be said with regard to the organisation of labour. In this connection the trade unions exclusively undertake the state regulation of wages and the standardisation of labour while the government departments concerned with this, the Commissariat of Labour and its local Departments, serve as purely auxiliary organs.
​Directly after the February Revolution a Ministry of Labour which endeavoured to act as the intermediary between Labour and Capital was established, but it strove to maintain a strictly "governmental" neutrality and by this means turned both the workers and the employers against itself. Things are quite different with the Commissariat of Labour. Created by the trade unions it acted as a class organ, not seeking compromise but putting into force all the compulsory powers of the Government to carry out all the demands of the workers. There was some parallelism in the work after the first months of the Revolution. The Commissariat, as an organ elected by the trade unions, often carried out the functions of the latter and sometimes acted without consulting the trade unions. This duplication of work arose as the result of the absence of any delimitation of functions between the trade unions and the Commissariat of Labour. The 4th Congress of Trade Unions, which took place in April, 1918, in order to clear up the relations between the two departments, resolved that "all resolutions on principle passed by the higher organs of the trade unions (Congresses and Conferences, etc.) are obligatory for the Labour Commissariats. All legislative proposals and special obligatory regulations affecting the conditions of labour and production must be previously approved by the responsible organ of the trade unions (i.e. the National and Local Trade Union Councils). As a first step towards the practical realisation of this the National and Local Trade Union Councils organise collegiate boards at the head of the Labour Commissariats as their responsible organs for carrying out general class policy and for harmonising practical measures."
Labour Commissariat Subordinate to Trade Unions
The 2nd Trade Union Congress again confirmed the obligation for the Labour Commissariat to put into force the resolutions of the higher organs of the trade unions (i.e., conferences, congresses and the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions). The Congress also resolved that "all compulsory regulations issued by the Commissariat of Labour affecting labour conditions must be previously approved of by the general meeting of the All-Russia Council of Trade Unions."
Two and a half years of the work proved that the limitation of functions was a rather complicated thing and that the work of the Commissariat and its local Departments wholly depends upon the degree of influence which the responsible trade union organisations have upon it. On the whole the following division of labour was observed. The whole wages policy, i.e., the state regulation of wages, standardisation of labour, questions of labour discipline, etc., is exclusively conducted by the trade unions while the commissariats merely confirm the decisions arrived at by the trade unions. Protection of labour and the distribution of labour power are carried out by the Commissariat of Labour while the trade unions control these departments through their representatives.
The 3rd Trade Union Congress expressed itself for "the necessity of a closer contact between the trade unions and the ​local Departments of Labour and for increasing the influence of trade union control on the current activity of the Department of Labour in the centre as well as on the periphery. All the responsible workers of the Labour Commissariat must be elected at the congresses or conferences of Trade Unions. A preliminary consideration of all questions of principle affecting labour must take place at joint meetings of the Executive (or general meeting) of the trade unions and the head (or the board) of the Department of Labour before any decision can be arrived at."
What of the Future?
These relations between the trade unions and a Department of the Soviet Government show that: (1) the state regulation of wages and the standardisation of labour is the exclusive function of the trade union, (2) in defining the conditions of labour the organs of the Soviet Government—the Commissariats of Labour—carry out in their entirety the instructions of the trade unions. In this connection one must observe the following: as the fixing of wages and the standardisation of labour is entirely the function of the trade unions, it is irrational to have another special organ to sanction its decisions; we get a parallelism in the work, and as we abolished organs created by the trade unions which were doing similar work to that done by Soviet organs so it is necessary to abolish Soviet organs which are doing work similar to that of the trade unions. The increased control and the further subordination of the Commissariat of Labour to the trade unions must lead to the practical abolition of the Commissariat of Labour, and to the transfer of its functions to the respective trade unions. After the practical abolition of this Department there must follow its formal abolition; and the trade unions will remain the sole organs responsible to the proletarian state for the organisation of labour and their decisions in this sphere will be subject to the sanction of their national central organs only. In this manner the whole work of organisation, protection and standardisation of labour is concentrated in the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and its local organs. There will, therefore, be but two central national organs: one the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, which concentrates its work on the organisation of labour, and the other, the Supreme Council of National Economy, which occupies itself exclusively with the organisation of production. But as labour is the fundamental factor in production, the next stage will lead to the simplification of the whole economic apparatus by the fusion of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions with the Supreme Council of National Economy, and the industrial unions with the respective Chief and Central Committees for the administration of the nationalised undertakings. When this will take place is as yet not known, but this is the developing tendency, this is the iron logic of socialist economic construction.
Russia is the only country in the world where wages for all categories of labour are regulated on a national scale and where this regulation is carried out by the trade unions. In this work the Russian trade unions had to start right from the very beginning. Previous to the February Revolution, 1917, there was no such thing as collective bargaining for the reason that there were no mass trade unions. In the large majority of cases individual workers entered into agreements with individual employers. Strikes were of a spontaneous character; neither the working class as a whole nor separate trades had any organised influence on the rate of wages. There were no labour statistics. The unions that were in existence had very little material, information was gathered chiefly by factory inspectors and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, while the figures concerning wages, minimum standard of living, number of workers and the length of the labour day were the only information upon which one could operate, and when the revolution broke out the unions had to start literally from the very beginning, having to carry out in a very short time a task which the British, German and American trade unions carried out during a period of many decades. The first difficulty met with in the regulation of wages on a national scale was the absence of any apparatus, material, and experienced people who could raise this work to its proper level.
The second serious obstacle which prevented the regulation of wages on a national scale was the disorganisation of national economic organisations resulting from the war, the jumpy rise in the cost of articles of primary necessity, the instability of the monetary unit and the extreme scarcity of food and general scarcity of commodities. All these, in conjunction with the acuteness of the civil war, prevented the establishment of stable standards and the convulsive efforts of the working class to shake off the Russian and world counter-revolution deprived the trade unions of all possibilities of converting the regulation of wages into an actual regulation of national economy.
Wage Fixing by Trade Unions.
If in establishment of wage rates the British trade unions had to take into consideration the state of the market, the general economic position and the potentialities of the country, then so much more had this to be taken into consideration in Russia, where the workers have no one to whom to put forward their demands unless it be to themselves. The Russian trade unions do not "negotiate" with anybody, they do not demand "increase" in wages or the introduction of new forms of payment, but establish all these things themselves. All wage rates, etc., worked out by the trade unions are handed to the Wages Department of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions for the purpose of establishing a uniform wage policy and there the wage rates are finally worked out, systematised and signed and then confirmed by the Commissariat of Labour. Not one institution in Soviet Russia may establish or change wage rates without or apart from the corresponding trade union. Under those circumstances the trade unions cannot but approach the ​question of wage policy from the class point of view. The State regulation of wages must not only raise badly paid categories of labour and make wages conform to the changing economic conditions of the country but in the first place, must connect the wage policy with the supply of the workers with articles of primary necessity, i.e., must strive towards the naturalisation of wages; in the second place, to fix wages according to results obtained, i.e., to introduce a strict standardisation of labour and, thirdly, to serve^ as a powerful instrument for the raising of labour productivity in the factories.
The trade unions did tremendous work in the sphere of fixing wages during the period leading up to the October Revolution; they studied and classified all categories of labour in all the branches of national industry and State administration. Every union studied the peculiar condition of its branch of trade, its degree of harmfulness, etc., created central and local wage standardisation departments, established grading of skill in labour, included in the general wages scheme not only physical workers but all the clerical elements and all categories of mental labour, worked out systems of payment for encouraging output and established definite relations of various groups and various grades of skill. But, in spite of the tremendous work which has been done, the Russian trade unions stand yet before the very beginning of the solution of these questions, for the solution of the problem of rating and standardising labour on a national scale means to organise social labour, i.e., to organise socialist production.
The immediate and most complicated problem is to do away with the money remuneration which the worker now needs for the purpose of buying articles of primary consumption for himself and his family. In view of the insufficiency of products the issue of articles in kind over and above the standard was carried out up till now as a form of encouragement for extra labour. This is why at all our congresses the question of wages is associated with the question of food. At the 3rd Congress the Material Supply Section worked simultaneously with the Wages Section and indicated a practical plan by which the unions could supply the workers with articles of primary necessity. We know very well that material supply to the workers is the best means of increasing the productivity of the factories and for that reason the trade unions, in complete agreement with the Soviet Government, give the most important place to the consideration of supplying the workers, as one of the most important factors in the economic revival of the country. It is self evident that the economic revival of the country is not an end in itself but the means to an end. That end is socialism which can only be constructed upon a firm economic foundation.
IV. Structure and Policy.
The youthfulness of the trade unions, apart from its negative sides, as we saw in the sphere, of regulating and standardising labour, has a number of positive sides clearly evident in our trade union movement, which is quite free from historical strata, conservatism, prejudices and old traditions ​connected with the peaceful and organic development of capitalism. Our unions are not only free from the dead-weight of tradition because they are young but principally because they are the children of the Revolution. They grew and developed with the Revolution and they withered and fell during the period of victory of the counter-revolution. These peculiar features of the Russian Trade Unions are reflected in all their activities, but this is particularly clear and evident in their constructive work and in their political orientation. In constructing their organisation the Russian trade unions took advantage of the negative and positive experiences of Western Europe, and, in the first days of their birth in 1905, they began to organise, not according to trades but according to industry. In the first period of the Revolution this was only observed to the extent that the growth of the unions was limited by tsarism. But after the February Revolution all the work of organisation was conducted on the principle of building the union according to industry. The 3rd Conference already advocated the "unification within the frame of a common organisation and a common leadership or as large a mass of workers as possible engaged in similar factories and allied trades."
Industrial Unionism Defined.
The 1st Congress confirmed the necessity for creating unions according to industry, but did not further explain what an industrial union meant. This was done by the 2nd Congress which laid it down that "an industrial union is a union having the following characteristics:
(1) uniting all workers and employees of a given industry, independently of the particular functions they perform; (2) having a central fund; (3) having an administration based on democratic centralism; (4) working out wage rates and conditions for all categories of labour through a single central body; (5) a uniform construction from top to bottom; (6) sections within the union having a technical auxiliary function only; (7) representation through a single body of the interests of the organised workers and employees of a given industry before the outside world; (8) persons not producing, but assisting the producers, as well as all temporary and casual workers, remain members of their industrial union."
It is evident from this definition that the fundamental principle of the Russian trade union movement is: in one factory, one union; and this means that all workers from unskilled labourers to hired engineers working in a metal factory including also the wood workers are members of the metal workers' union. Wood workers, mechanics, etc., working in a textile factory, join the Textile Workers' Union and electricians and stokers working in a soap factory join the Chemical Workers' Union. Thus, the peculiarity of our Trade Union movement lies in its concentration. In England there are 200 national unions, in France about 60 and in Germany 48, in Russia, in January, 1920, there were 32 national centralised unions and after the, 3rd Congress there remained only 23 unions embracing all categories of workers and employees, all ​categories of labour from the simplest unskilled labour to the highly skilled engineer, doctor and professors of all educational establishments. At a first glance it would seem impossible to unite all the varieties of modern industry in such a small number of unions, but it only seems so. If one starts out, not from the point of view of the interests of a group or a craft, but from the interests of the whole, from the interests of production—and production is the means of constructing our socialist society on a sound foundation—then the number of unions can be reduced to the minimum we have established.
The New Scheme: 23 Unions.
Thus as a result of the decision of the third congress the following trade unions will henceforth exist in Russia:
1. Employees and workers in medical and sanitary services (doctors, nurses, hospital nurses, hospital porters, hospital attendants, pharmacists).
2. Transport workers (railwaymen, sailors, stevedores, chauffeurs, etc.).
3. Miners.
4. Woodworkers.
5. Land and forest workers.
6. Art workers (actors, choristers, musicians, artists, theatrical, circus and cinema employees).
7. Workers on public feeding and housing.
8. Leather workers.
9. Metal workers.
10. Workers and employees in communal service (drains, water supply, militia, fire brigade, bath employees, laundry employees, hairdressers, street lighting employees).
11. Workers in Education and socialist culture (public teachers, professors, high school and university staff, porters, etc.).
12. Employees in public communications (post, telegraph, telephone and radio).
13. Printers.
14. Workers in the paper industry.
15. Workers in the food industry (bakers, confectioners, sausage makers, flour millers, etc.).
16. Builders.
17. Workers in the sugar industry.
18. Soviet employees (in co-operatives, shops, commissariats, etc.).
19. Tobacco workers.
20. Textile workers.
21. Chemical workers (Soap, perfume, explosives and match factories).
22. Workers in the clothing industry (outer and under garments, hats, etc.).
23. Employees in taxation, finance and control departments.
​Structure.
All these unions are constructed on the same principle.
The nucleus of the union is the factory committee. All factory committees of a given district (or uyesd) form a branch of the union: all branches in the territory of a province or definite county form a provincial (gubernia) department and all factory committees, branches and departments are the organs of the corresponding All-Russian trade union. The union is centralised: fifty per cent. of the contribution goes to the funds of the central committee of the union (from the first of May of this year the membership contribution will be 2 per cent. of their wages).
The connection between the industrial unions and their organs and the co-ordination of their work is established by transverse organs of the trade union movement. In small localities, secretariats, uniting all the workers and employees; in uyesds, bureaux of the trade unions are set up on the basis of representation from the branches; in provinces, councils of trade unions based on the representation of provincial departments, and in the centre the All-Russia Council of Trade Unions the executive of which is elected by the All-Russia Congress and the members from the national trade unions in the proportion of one for every fifty thousand members.
Statistics of Membership.
The concentration and growth of the trade union movement will be seen by the following figures, presented at the congresses by trade union councils, departments and branches:
| | T. U. Councils | Dep. and Branches. | Nat. Organis. |
| 3rd Conference (June 1917) | 1,120,819 | 1,475,429 | — |
| 1st Congress (Jan. 1918) | 1,888,353 | 2,532,000 | 19 |
| 2nd Congress (Jan. 1919) | 2,037,700 | 3.638,812 | 30 |
| 3rd Congress (April 1920) | 3,980,435 | 4,326,000 | 32 |
It will be seen from this small table that the number of organised workers rose unceasingly (the difference in the figures between the data supplied by the councils and by the branches is explained by the fact that several categories do not enter into the trade union councils) and that the number of national organisations have increased very little. More than that, according to the decision of the third congress, a regrouping and fusion will take place as a result of which all the organised workers in Russia will be grouped into twenty-three centralised unions each of which will have its department in every province and branch in every district.
Such a small number of unions having such a large number of organised workers became possible because auxiliary workers joined the unions of the main industry and only in connection with commissariats and state institutions did we depart from our principle of "one undertaking, one union." By undertaking is meant a complete administrative, technical and economic entity. ​No Craft Unions.
In order to understand the Russian trade union movement it is necessary to bear in mind: (1) that there are no yellow unions in Russia, (2) that there are no unions standing outside of the general trade union centre. All unions in Russia enter into the All-Russia Central Trade Union Council and only those organisations who are in the All-Russia centre have the right to call themselves a trade or industrial union, (3) there are no separate unions for intellectuals, doctors, engineers, etc., all enter the respective trade union, mechanical engineers in the metal workers' union, engineers working in textile factories into the textile workers' union. All these categories of labour may, if it is so desired, form scientific and technical associations, but these associations do not enjoy the rights and privileges of a union, and, (4) there are no craft guilds in Russia.
The creation of such wide industrial unions each ot which embraces hundreds of categories of mental and physical workers certainly met with some opposition with the craft traditions and particularly owing to the pride and narrowmindedness of the intellectuals—engineers, doctors and artists. But many fetishes and traditions were consumed in the fire of the revolution among which are those of the guild and narrow corporation.
Political Neutrality Condemned.
The trade union includes masses of workers and employees without distinction of their political and religious convictions. The trade unions are not party organisations, but in no case are they "neutral" or non-political: a trade union which behaves equally to a socialist or to a bourgeois party, who would advocate voting for bourgeois candidates at elections, as has often happened in England and America, has never existed in Russia. The labour unions have always been socialistic. The social democratic party was always the midwife at the birth of a trade union. The party stood at its cradle and reared it and therefore there can be with us no question of any liberal labour unions; the trade unions in Russia never had to choose between liberalism and socialism—such a problem never confronted us—but between opportunistic socialism and revolutionary socialism, i.e., between menshevism and bolshevism.
The choice, as we saw above, was made even before the October revolution; the Russian trade unions united their fate with that of the October revolution, with the Soviet government: this meant that the Russian trade union movement as a wh9le marched under the banner and acted according to the directions of the Russian communist party. This seems to be rather contradictory: a non-party trade union movement which nevertheless acts under the directions of a definite ​political party. But really there is no contradiction, for non-party does not mean non-political and to the extent that a trade union participates in a political struggle—and it cannot do anything else but participate—it must march under the banner and accept the platform of some political party, and as the political struggle is a class struggle, and the trade unions embracing millions of the proletariat cannot remain outside of the class struggle, particularly in the period of social revolution and the direct struggle of the working class for power—the Russian trade unions not only took part in the political struggle, but repeatedly declared their solidarity with that party which more than any expressed the interests of the working class—the bolshevik party.
Relations with the Communist Party.
Neither the congresses nor conferences demanded, of course, that the trade unions should accept the programme of the Russian communist party, but they worked out a definite programme of revolutionary action which every union as a member of the social family was obliged to carry out if it desired to remain within the trade union movement. Non-party organisation does not mean indefiniteness, still less indifference to passing events. For that reason the second congress in one of its resolutions declares: "uniting workers and employees in unions independently of their political or religious convictions, the Russian trade union movement while standing on the ground of international class struggle resolutely condemns the idea of 'neutrality' and considers it is a necessary condition for every union joining an All-Russian organisation to 'recognise the revolutionary class struggle for the realisation of socialism by means of the dictatorship of the proletariat.'"
The second Congress formally confirmed what was already a fact that in the period of acute class struggle there cannot but be organic connection between the trade unions and the dictatorship of the proletariat whose main support they are. This decision was attached to the rules of trade union discipline which are the normal obligations for all the unions. The first item in these rules states: "Organising and attracting the labour masses in the work of socialist construction the trade union. … has for its aim the realisation of socialism by means of the dictatorship of the proletariat." The intellectual hegemony of the programme and the tactics of the Russian communist party could not be more clearly expressed.
Unity of the Political and Industrial Movement.
We saw that the first two congresses adopted the point of view of the Bolsheviks, but the organised connection between the trade unions and the communist party made it particularly self-evident at the third trade union congress. The third congress began with the recognition of the hegemony of the Russian communist party and in its first resolution asserted that "the trade unions as a whole, standing on the platform of the realisation of communism through the dictatorship of the proletariat, are indivertibly guided in their activity in the proletarian revolution by the Russian Communist Party."
​On the report presented by Lenin the congress resolved: "to increase efforts to attract the labour masses to the work of communist construction through the trade unions under the guidance of the communist party, the only party which expresses the true interests of the working class and all workers in Soviet Russia."
The resolution on organisation states:
"Organisation is not an end, but a means to an end; the aim of the industrially organised proletariat is communism and the road leading to this aim is the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat."
The third trade union congress went even further; it not only formally proclaimed its organised connection with the communist party, but in a special resolution approved the economic policy of the ninth congress of the Russian Communist Party, assuming that the realisation of the resolutions of the party congress will "finally consolidate the victory of the proletariat over capitalism." To this must be added the greetings sent by the congress to the fighters for communism, to the German Sparticists and Left Independents, and the invitation to the Russian Young Communist League to conduct political education among the youth, and to the women's department of the Russian Communist Party for political work among women. This gives us a picture of unity of the political and trade union movement in Russia.
The resolutions of the third trade union congress as well as the resolutions of previous congresses will become intelligible to us if we observe the uninterrupted growth of Bolshevik influence in the trade union movement. Here are some figures in this connection:
| | Delegates. | Bolshev. and Sympathisers. | per cent. |
| The 3rd Conference (1917) | 220 | 80 | 36.4 |
| Democratic Convention (Sept. 1017) | 117 | 70 | 59. |
| 1st Congress (Jan. 1918) | 416 | 273 | 65.6 |
| 2nd Congress (Jan. 1919) | 748 | 449 | 60 |
| 3rd Congress (April 1920) | 1229 | 949 | 78.1 |
In order that the growth of revolutionary marxism within the labour movement may be >made more clear it is necessary to mention that in December, 1919, the Socialist Internationalist Labour Party affiliated to the Communist Party. The former had a rather considerable influence in the trade union movement. At the second Congress it had 50 delegates. The party had particular influence in the leather workers' and railwaymen's unions.
This overwhelming influence of the Russian Communist Party in the trade union movement explains our revolutionary theory and practice. This comes from the fact that the Russian proletariat never separated economics from politics and has never suffered from that childish disease "neutrality" and that we, the leaders of the Russian trade union movement are in perfect ​agreement with the postulate laid down at the end of March, 1920, by the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party: "Politics are the most concentrated expression of economics, being its generalisation and final accomplishment. … Only to the extent that a trade union while formally remaining non-party becomes communistic in reality and carries out the policy of the Communist Party is the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist construction assured."
V. International Policy.
The problems confronting the Russian trade union movement extend beyond national limits. Socialism cannot be victorious while capitalism and old capitalist relations exist. The victory of socialism can only be international; this presupposes, therefore, a militant international proletarian organisation.
The necessity for international solidarity was doubted in the trade unions of some countries (America), but for the majority of organised workers in all countries, this question had been decided long before the war. The following three forms of international connection existed on the eve of the war: (1) trade unions entered the international socialist bureau and participated in the Congresses of the Second International. (2) International labour organisations by trades and industries, (commencing from 1900), (3) in 1905 an international trade union secretariat was established whose functions were rather statistical and informatory than political. All these three forms of connection were broken by the war. All the trade unions of all countries with a few exceptions became supporters of the war. The labour organisations of the whole world broke up into two hostile coalitions and with the collapse of the Second International the international trade union organisations broke down also. The executive committees of these organisations, occupied a position dependent on the particular territory and particular coalition they were in. In 1916 the general trade union centre of the Allied countries in the persons of Jouhaux, Appleton and Gompers attempted to set up their Allied international trade union, but nothing came of it and only after the conclusion of the war were attempts made to establish the broken connections. First at Berne, and later in Amsterdam representatives of trade unions of Allied countries gathered and created an international federation of trade unions and this apparently was to act as the guide of the international trade union movement. Simultaneously with this international federation of trade unions, on the initiative of these same trade unionists, a Labour Bureau in connection with the League of Nations, on which official representatives of the general trade union centres of the largest countries were represented, was set up whose object it was to draw up international labour legislation. It would seem, therefore, that there is yet another international centre to supplement the efforts of the trade unions. The Second International to which the majority of the trade unions were affiliated prior to the war ceased to exist from the day on which it threw all the moral authority of the Second International in defence of Allied imperialism. The Second International is dead and those trade unions which feel an ​intellectual affinity with it, are absolutely powerless to do anything to call it back to life.
The International Labour Office.
What is the attitude of the Russian trade unions towards these international organisations? First of all, with regard to the Labour Bureau of the League of Nations, it turns out that this "purely labour" institution, which should have been the laboratory for international labour legislation, has been converted into the sort of pocket labour-capitalist international, the constitution and composition of which excludes the possibility of any surprises. In fact, at the first meeting, on January 25th, in Paris, the Labour Bureau was composed of the following persons:
Of the employers Guerin (France), Marjoribanks (England), Hodacz (Czecho-Slovakia), Schindler (Switzerland), Carlier (Belgium), and Pirelli (Italy)—all large employers and leaders of economic organisations.
Of the workers: Jouhaux (France) Oudegeest (Holland), Stuart Bunning (England), Torberg (Sweden),- Legien Germany) and one Australian—all hardened social patriots.
Of the "neutral" governments: Baron Major des Planches (Italy), Sir Malcolm Delevingne (England), Count de Eza (Spain), Nagaloka (Japan), Rufenacht (Switzerland), Sokol (Poland), Professor Maheim (Belgium), de Alvear (Argentine), Doctor Lehmann (Germany) and Vedel (Denmark).
At the head of this remarkable institution was elected the worthy betrayer of the working class, Albert Thomas. This is the bouquet which was cultivated in the hothouse of the League of Nations.
Can there be any doubt for a moment that the Russian trade unions can look with anything else but contempt upon these organisations which play the part of lackeys to the international trust, otherwise called the League of Nations? Is it not clear that these gentlemen formerly of the working class who hang round the door of the League of Nations and run their errands for it, can at best be utter fools? We have nothing in common with these gentlemen. The League of Nations and all those who are associated with it are dangerous enemies of socialism and ruthless war to the finish must be declared against them.
The International Federation of Trade Unions.
What is the international federation of trade unions? It is a conglomeration of unions of which some are for the social revolution, others against it, some assist in crushing Soviet Russia, others are fighting against the policy of its suppression; organisations without programmes, without platforms, without a definite point of view on the fundamental questions of the day. What is the attitude of the international federation towards the social revolution, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, towards direct action and mass revolutionary struggle? It is ​not known. What has the international federation done to fight against international reaction? Nothing. What is the attitude of the international federation to the League of Nations and the Labour Bureau. Evidently, friendly, because the Vice-president of the International Federation of Trade Unions, Jouhaux, and the Secretary of the Federation, Oudegeest, are members of the notorious bureau. That is sufficient to show that the International Federation of Trade Unions is a corpse which will become decomposed with the decomposing League of Nations. This is why the Trade Unions of Russia frankly declare to the international proletariat that "our way and the way of the corpses of the International Federation of Trade Unions are not the same."
Unity with the Third International.
We see, therefore, that both centres created by the agile hands of the social patriots are everything else in the world but militant proletarian organisations. Meanwhile the co-ordination of the activities of all the labour organisations on an international scale is a premise to, and a condition of the victory of the social revolution. The Russian trade unions have long ago taken this into consideration and for that reason have been in favour of the Third International long before the foundation of this organisation. Standing on the platform of the social revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, and marching under the banner of the Russian Communist Party, the Russian trade unions have long since been an inseparable part of the Third International. The 3rd Congress merely formulated and strengthened the connection which sprang up as the result of outlook and unity of revolutionary action. "The fight of the international proletariat"—says the resolution of the 3rd Congress of Trade Unions—"is conducted, not for the reform of capitalism, but for its abolition. In this revolutionary, struggle all the class conscious revolutionary elements of the working class more and more determinedly rally to the Third International as the organisation which is the incarnation of the world proletarian revolution."
The Third International is not as some think an organisation composed merely of political parties. The Third International is a fighting revolutionary class centre, which is acccessible to all proletarian, political, trade union and co-operative organisations, which, not in words, but in deeds, fight for socialism. It would be a great crime on our part if we attempted to create a special trade union international. It would at best result in the dispersal of forces and at worst, would be a bad edition of the Second International in the form of an International Federation of Trade Unions. All the revolutionary class trade unions must enter the Third International in which they must organise trade union sections or secretariats. For that reason the 3rd Congress decided to join the Third International and to call upon the revolutionary class unions of all other countries to follow its example.
CONCLUSION.
It is three years since the rise of the Russian trade unions (on the eve of the March Revolution there were three trade unions with a general membership of 1,385). The youthfulness of our unions is reflected in the inadequate connection of the centre with the localities, in the absence of exact information and statistics, in the weakness of the apparatus, in the slowness in assuming command of the tremendous mechanism of production, the small successes in the standardisation of labour, in the impossibility of carrying out completely the intended system of the State regulation of wages and finally, in the temporary increase of unions of small undertakings which are difficult to control. All of us see this dark side of our trade union movement. We are far from thinking that the Russian trade union movement can in all respects serve as an example for the trade unions of other countries; but we would be sinning against historic truth if we did not lay stress on the tact that the Russian Trade Unions, in spite of a number of deficiencies, are yet in many respects exemplary;! for they have one very great virtue: they are the child and the creature of the Revolution. The victory of the Revolution was the victory of the trade unions; the defeat of the Revolution was a defeat for trade unions. This organic connection of the unions with the Revolution gives us the key to the understanding of the reason of the weakness of the trade unions and the difficulties of the problems that confront us.
The long years of the civil war in which the proletariat played the leading part, the blockade and the economic disorganisation arising therefrom, the repeated mobilisation of trade unionists reaching 50 per cent. of the membership in some towns and despatching to the front in moments of danger—and these moments occurred often—of hundreds of active workers in the trade union movement, could not but reflect itself on our trade union organisation. The trade unions accurately reflect the degrees of organisation of national economy. The ill-health of the national economic organism is also the ill-health of the trade unions and vice versa. And so, in the period of collapse, the old productive relations of the trade unions in Russia play a large organising role. There is not a branch of State activity (military, food, sanitary, economic, technical, cultural, etc.) in which the Russian trade unions are not engaged. There is not an important act of legislation in the discussion of which the Russian trade unions have not taken part. Revolutionary activity, whole-hearted loyalty to the cause of the social revolution, the clear and firm position in the struggle with the bourgeoisie, the stern and ruthless hostility to the very idea of the co-operation of classes, the fearless destruction of old relations and fetishes are things which the Russian trade unions may teach the workers of other countries.
That the Russian trade unions have shown that they are revolutionary not only in the struggle with the bourgeoisie but also in the struggle against the prejudices in labour organisation was proved by the radical revision of the question pf strikes after the October Revolution. Now we have another ​example in compulsory labour. The economic life of Russia is disorganised and the greatest concentration of labour power and the highest concentration of effort is necessary in order to emerge from the economic cul-de-sac. The Russian trade unions have advanced the battle cry: "Workers to the Lathe!" "Workers raise the standard of production of labour in the factories, improve production, act with all the energy and enthusiasm and self-sacrifice with which you fought against the counter-revolution, for the economic weakness of Russia means the death of the Social Revolution." The Russian trade unions could raise the cry of "increase productivity of labour" because we are working for ourselves. The Russian trade unions are playing the part of drivers and are doing this with all the determination of their inherent revolutionary character because they are working for themselves; but, in order that not a single ounce of energy be lost we advocate obligatory labour—the militarisation of labour, i.e., the subordination of separate categories of the workers to the interest of the whole. If the proletarian State may send hundreds of thousands and millions of the workers to the front—to death, then that State and the- trade unions may, in complete conformity with this, demand from the members of its class devoted and intensive labour on the industrial front.
The welfare of the social revolution is the highest law, and if any individual or group of workers shirk the obligations of revolutionary labour the trade unions declare: "the industrial front is the most important front of the Russian Revolution, every citizen is a soldier in the labour army, and no mercy wilt be shown to deserters." This is the meaning of compulsory labour and the militarisation of labour. Who can deny this right to the proletarian State in the period of thje abolition of private property and the means of production and exchange? Who would blame the socialist government for demanding from every citizen the duty of performing a definite amount of labour in the interests of society? No one but miserable philistines, utter fools or dishonest demagogues.
The Russian trade unions are in the thick of the Revolution; that is why the proposal emanating from certain Western European comrades to turn from the trade union movement because the Western European social patriots still stand at their head is humourous and petty. We do not advise comrades to throw themselves into the water in order to protect themselves from the rain, or to throw the baby out with the bath water. To think that revolution is possible in Western Europe without, apart from, or hi opposition to the trade unions is a harmful and dangerous illusion and deserves the severest condemnation. The policy of abandoning the trade unions advocated by certain "left" and very revolutionary comrades is a most harmful and reactionary policy of self-isolation of the revolutionary elements from the mass labour movement and must be categorically refuted. On the experience of the Russian trade union movement, we say to you, the sincere friends of the Russian Revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat: "Go into the trade unions, conquer them, and you will secure millions of organisers of labour and production for socialism." You should construct ​the Revolution and the administration of the transition period on the strong foundation of proletarian economic organisation. The capitalist world is collapsing. Capitalism has torn itself from its moorings and is rolling to its doom. The trade unions of Russia are not only helping, the old world to a more speedy dissolution but are building a new socialist society in its place. These are the functions and characteristics of the Russian trade unions.
* ↑ Rendering Trade Unions organs of the State.
* ↑ There is a group of higher state and bank employees and intellectuals who defended and now defend the view of the "non-party" character of trade unions. But this "non-partyism" was a clearly demonstrated struggle of all these intellectual and semi-intellectual unions against the October revolution, and is therefore not distinguished from vulgar opportunism or even liberalism.
* ↑ This figure is much below the actual number present; from the registers of the fraction meetings it is evident that the number of communists and sympathisers including delegates with consultative votes was 500.