V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v37; ru:PSS/v34; en:CW/CW26;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

I

The theses of Tomsky, Radus-Zenkovich and Nogin each express the point of view of the corresponding “speciality”, namely, that of the trade union functionary, the commissariat and the cooperatives with their insurance funds.

Consequently, each group of theses suffers from a one-sided emphasis on one aspect of the matter and obscures and glosses over the fundamental, principled questions.

A correct formulation of these principled questions of the present-day trade union movement and its relation to the Soviet power demands, above all, a correct appraisal of the specific features of the present, given moment in the transition from capitalism to socialism.

All three authors have not sufficiently emphasised, or have almost entirely failed to emphasise, this fundamental aspect of the matter.

II

The principal specific feature of the present moment, in the respect under consideration, is the following:

The Soviet power, as the dictatorship of the proletariat, has triumphed both among the proletarian masses of the towns and among the poorest peasantry of the countryside, but it has by no means yet embraced, either by communist propaganda or by stable organisation, either all trades or the entire mass of the semi-proletariat.

Hence the special, exceptional importance at the present moment of intensified propaganda and organisational work, on the one hand, with the aim of extending our influence to those strata of workers and office employees which are the least Soviet (i.e., the farthest from complete acceptance of the Soviet platform), and of subordinating these strata to the general movement of the proletariat; and, on the other hand, with the aim of ideologically stirring up and raising, and organisationally uniting, the most undeveloped strata and elements of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, such as, for example, unskilled labourers, domestic servants in the towns, semi-proletarians in the countryside, etc.

Further, the second fundamental specific feature of the present moment is that the building of socialist society has already been placed on the rails in our country, i.e., it has not only been defined as a task and as the immediate practical aim, but has also created a number of the principal organs of this building (for example, the Economic Councils), has evolved a certain practice of their interrelations with the mass organisations (trade unions, cooperatives), and has acquired a certain practical experience. At the same time, however, the building is far from being completed or finished; there are still very many gaps; the most essential things are not yet ensured (for example, the proper collection and distribution of grain, the production and distribution of fuel); the participation of the broad mass of the working people in this building is still extremely inadequate.

III

From this situation the following tasks of the trade unions at the present moment arise.

There can be no question of any “neutrality” of the trade unions. Any advocacy of neutrality is either a hypocritical cover for counter-revolution, or a manifestation of complete lack of consciousness.

We are now sufficiently strong in the basic core of the trade union movement to be able to subordinate to our influence and to general proletarian discipline both the backward or passive, non-communist elements within the trade unions, and those strata of the working people which in some respects still remain petty-bourgeois.

Consequently, the main task now is not to break the resistance of a strong enemy, for such an enemy no longer exists among the masses of the proletariat and semi-proletariat in Soviet Russia, but to overcome, by persistent, strenuous, broader educational and organisational work, the prejudices of certain petty-bourgeois strata of the proletariat and semi-proletariat, steadily to extend the still insufficiently broad base of the Soviet power (i.e., to increase the number of workers and poorest peasants directly participating in the administration of the state), to enlighten the backward strata of the working people (not only by means of books, lectures, and newspapers, but by practical participation in administration), to seek new organisational forms both for these new tasks of the trade union movement in general, and for drawing in incomparably larger masses of the semi-proletariat, for example, the poorest peasantry.

For example, to draw all members of the trade unions into the work of state administration—through commissariats, through participation in flying control groups, etc., etc. To draw in domestic servants—first to participation in the work of the cooperatives, in the supply of food to the population, in the supervision of the production of food, etc., and then to more responsible and less “narrow” work—of course, with the necessary gradualness.

To draw “specialists” into state work jointly with the workers, and to exercise supervision over the specialists.

The consideration of transitional forms demands new organisational frameworks. For example, the Committees of the Poor in the countryside play a gigantic role. It may be feared that their merger with the Soviets will in some places lead to the masses of the semi-proletariat being left outside the framework of a permanent organisation. We must not reject the task of organising the poor in the countryside on the pretext that they are not wage-workers. It is possible and necessary to seek, and seek, and seek new forms, even if, for example, by creating unions of the poor (let them be the same Committees of the Poor), as unions of the poorest, (α) not interested in speculation in grain and in high grain prices, (β) striving to improve their life by common measures for all, (γ) striving to increase the social cultivation of the land, (δ) seeking a permanent alliance with the urban workers, etc.

Such a union of the rural poor could form a special department of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, so that it could not suppress the fully proletarian elements. The form can be modified and must be sought in accordance with practice, in accordance with the new task of embracing new, transitional social types (the rural poor are not the proletariat, and now not even the semi-proletariat, but those who stand closest to the semi-proletariat, insofar as capitalism has not yet died, and at the same time those who are most sympathetic to the transition to socialism)…[29]

Written in December 1918–first half of January 1919

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIV

Printed from the manuscript