Tasks Of The Trade Unions

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I

The theses by Tomsky, Radus-Zenkovich and Nogin each express the viewpoint of the particular job they represent: trade unions, commissariat and co-operatives with mutual benefit societies.

Each group of theses therefore suffers from a lopsided emphasis of only one side of the picture and an overshadowing and suppression of the fundamental points at issue.

A correct picture of these fundamental issues concerning the trade union movement today and its attitude towards the Soviet government requires above all proper consideration for the specific features of the present, given situation in the transition from capitalism to socialism.

All three gave insufficient attention or virtually no attention at all to this vital aspect of the matter.

II

The chief feature of the present situation in this respect is as follows.

The Soviet government as the dictatorship of the proletariat is victorious both among the urban proletariat and among the poor peasants but has far from won over by communist propaganda and strong organisation all trades and the whole mass of semi-proletarians.

Hence the special importance, particularly at the moment, of stepping up our propaganda and organisational work so that, on the one hand, we extend our influence over those workers and employees who are the least Soviet (that is, the furthest from fully accepting Soviet policy), and subordinate them to the general proletarian movement. And so that, on the other hand, we shake up and rouse ideologically, and rally organisationally, the most backward sections and individuals among the proletariat and semi-proletariat, such as the unskilled workers, the town servants, rural semi-proletariat, and so on.

Then, the second principal feature of the present situation is that the construction of socialist society is based on a solid foundation, that is, we have not only done more than map it out and set it as our immediate practical goal; we have formed several highly important bodies of this construction (the Economic Councils, for example), had certain experience of their relationship with mass organisations (trade unions, co-operatives), and obtained certain practical results. All the same, however, our construction is not yet finished by any means, we still have very many flaws to iron out, the very essentials are not yet guaranteed (for instance, proper collection and distribution of grain, production and distribution of fuel), and the main body of working people are still not playing a big enough part in the construction.

III

With this in view, the trade unions have the following tasks at present.

There can be no talk of any sort of trade union "neutrality". Any campaign for neutrality is either a hypocritical screen for counter-revolution or a complete lack of class-consciousness.

We are now strong enough in the basic core of the trade union movement to be able to bring under our influence and proletarian discipline both the backward and the passive non-Communists inside the unions, and those workers who are still in some respects petty-bourgeois.

So the chief aim now is, not to break the resistance of a strong enemy, for Soviet Russia no longer has such an enemy among the proletarians and semi-proletarians, but to overcome by stubborn, persistent, more extensive educational and organisational work the prejudices of certain pettybourgeois sections of the proletariat and semi-proletariat. The unions must steadily extend the insufficiently wide base of the Soviet government (that is, increase the number of workers and poor peasants directly taking part in state administration), educate the backward working people (by practical experience in management as well as by books, lectures and newspapers), and discover new organisational / orins both for these new tasks of the trade union movement in general, and for attracting a far more numerous mass of semi-proletarians, like the poor peasants, for example.

Thus, they must attract all trade union members into state administration-through the system of commissars, through participation in lightning control groups, and so on and so forth. They must attract the housemaid, first into co-operative work, in supplying the population with provisions, supervising their production, etc., and then into more responsible and less "narrow" work-but of course with the necessary gradualness.

They must get the specialists into state work together with the workers and keep an eye on them.

Transitional forms demand new bounds of organisation. Thus, for instance, the Poor Peasants' Committees are playing a tremendous role. There may be a danger that their merging with the Soviets would somewhere end up by leaving the mass of semi-proletarians outside of the bounds of permanent organisation. But we cannot forgo the task of organising the poor peasants under the pretext that they are not hired hands. It is possible and even necessary to search, search and search again for new forms, if only, for example, by forming unions of poor peasants (perhaps the very same Poor Peasants' Committees) as unions of the very poor (a) uninterested in grain profiteering and high grain prices, (b) interested in improving their lot by common measures for everyone, (c) interested in strengthening socialised farming, (d) interested in a permanent alliance with the urban workers, etc.

Such a poor peasant union could make up a special section of the All-Russia Trade Union Council to prevent it overwhelming the completely proletarian elements. The form can be modified and must be sought through applying it to practice, to the new task of embracing the new, transitional social types (the village poor are not the proletariat, and now not even semi-proletariat, but those who stand closest to the semi-proletariat since capitalism is not yet dead, and at the same time those who are most sympathetic to the transition to socialism)...

Here the manuscript ends—Editor