V. I. Lenin

The Trade Unions, The Present Situation

And Trotsky’s

Mistakes [1]

Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist
Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of
The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist
Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions
December 30, 1920

Comrades, I must first of all apologise for departing from the rules of procedure, for anyone wishing to take
part in the debate should have heard the report, the second report
and the speeches. I am so unwell, unfortunately, that I have been
unable to do this. But I was able yesterday to read the principal
printed documents and to prepare my remarks. This departure from
the rules will naturally cause you some inconvenience; not having
heard the other speeches, I may go over old ground and leave out
what should be dealt with. But I had no choice.

My principal material is Comrade Trotsky ’s pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions . When I compare it
with the theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and go over
it very carefully, I am amazed at the number of theoretical
mistakes and glaring blunders it contains. How could anyone
starting a big Party discussion on this question produce such a
sorry excuse for a carefully thought out statement? Let me go over
the main points which, I think, contain the original fundamental
theoretical errors.

Trade unions are not just historically necessary; they are
historically inevitable as an organisation of the industrial
proletariat, and, under the dictatorship of the proletariat,
embrace nearly the whole of it. This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky
keeps forgetting it; he neither appreciates it nor makes it his
point of departure, all this while dealing With “The Role
and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, a subject of infinite compass.

It follows from what I have said that the trade unions have an
extremely important part to play at every step of the dictatorship
of the proletariat. But what is their part? I find that it is a
most unusual one, as soon as I delve into this question, which is
one of the most fundamental theoretically. On the one hand, the
trade unions, which take in all industrial workers, are an
organisation of the ruling, dominant, governing class, which has
now set up a dictatorship and is exercising coercion through the
state. But it is not a state organisation; nor is it one designed
for coercion, but for education. It is an organisation designed to
draw in and to train; it is, in fact, a school: a school of
administration, a school of economic management, a school of
communism. It is a very unusual type of school, because there are
no teachers or pupils; this is an extremely unusual combination of
what has necessarily come down to us from capitalism, and what
comes from the ranks of the advanced revolutionary detachments,
which you might call the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. To talk about the role of the trade unions without
taking these truths into account is to fall straight into a number
of errors.

Within the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
trade unions stand, if I may say so, between the Party and the
government. In the transition to socialism the dictatorship of the
proletariat is inevitable, but it is not exercised by an
organisation which takes in all industrial workers. Why not? The
answer is given in the theses of the Second Congress of the
Communist International on the role of political parties in
general. I will not go into this here. What happens is that the
Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and
this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
dictatorship cannot be exercised or the functions of government
performed without a foundation such as the trade unions. These
functions, however, have to be performed through the medium of
special institutions which are also of a new type, namely, the
Soviets. What are the practical conclusions to be drawn from this
peculiar situation? They are, on the one hand, that the trade
unions are a link between the vanguard and the masses, and by
their daily work bring conviction to the masses, the masses of the
class which alone is capable of taking us from capitalism to
communism. On the other hand, the trade unions are a “reservoir” of the state power. This is what the trade
unions are in the period of transition from capitalism to
communism. In general, this transition cannot be achieved without
the leadership of that class which is the only class capitalism
has trained for large-scale production and which alone is divorced
from the interests of the petty proprietor. But the dictatorship
of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation
embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist
countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward)
the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted
in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation
taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise
proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard
that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole
is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of
transition from capitalism to communism. From this alone it is
evident that there is something fundamentally wrong in principle
when Comrade Trotsky points, in his first thesis, to “ideological confusion”, and speaks of a crisis as
existing specifically and particularly in the trade unions. If we
are to speak of a crisis, we can do so only after analysing the
political situation. It is Trotsky who is in “ideological
confusion”, because in this key question of the trade unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from
capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we
have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a
simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work
without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the
latter to the mass of the working people. In Russia, this mass is
a peasant one. There is no such mass anywhere else, but even in
the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or a not
entirely proletarian, mass. That is in itself enough to produce
ideological confusion. But it’s no use Trotsky’s pinning it on others.

When I consider the role of the trade unions in production,
find that Trotsky ’s basic mistake lies in his always dealing with it “in principle “, as a matter of
“general principle”. All his theses are based on “general principle”, an approach which is in itself
fundamentally wrong, quite apart from the fact that the Ninth
Party Congress said enough and more than enough about the trade
unions’ role in production, [2] and quite apart from the fact that in his own theses Trotsky quotes the perfectly clear
statements of Lozovsky and Tomsky, who were to be his “whipping boys” and an excuse for an exercise in
polemics. It turns out that there is, after all, no clash of
principle, and the choice of Tomsky and Lozovsky, who wrote what
Trotsky himself quotes, was an unfortunate one indeed. However
hard we may look, we shall not find here any serious divergence of
principle. In general, Comrade Trotsky’s great mistake, his
mistake of principle, lies in the fact that by raising the
question of “principle” at this time he is dragging back the Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank heaven, done
with principles and have gone on to practical business. We chatted
about principles—rather more than we should have—at the Smolny. Today, three years later, we have decrees on all
points of the production problem, and on many of its components;
but such is the sad fate of our decrees: they are signed, and then
we ourselves forget about them and fail to carry them out. Meanwhile, arguments about principles and differences of
principle are invented. I shall later on quote a decree dealing
with the trade unions’ role in production, a decree all of
us, including myself, I confess, have forgotten.

The actual differences, apart from those I have listed, really
have nothing to do with general principles. I have had to
enumerate my “differences” with Comrade Trotsky because, with such a broad theme as “The Role and Tasks of
the Trade Unions”, he has, I am quite sure, made a number of
mistakes bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. But, this apart, one may well ask, why is it that we
cannot work together, as we so badly need to do? It is because of
our different approach to the mass, the different way of
winning it over and keeping in touch with it. That is the
whole point. And this makes the trade union a very peculiar
institution, which is set up under capitalism, which inevitably
exists in the transition from capitalism to communism, and whose
future is a question mark. The time when the trade unions are
actually called into question is a long way off: it will be up to
our grandchildren to discuss that. What matters now is how to
approach the mass, to establish contact with it and win it over,
and how to get the intricate transmission system working (how to
run the dictatorship of the proletariat). Note that when I speak
oI the intricate transmission system I do not mean the machinery
of the Soviets. What it may have in the way of intricacy of
transmission comes under a special head. I have only been
considering, in principle and in the abstract, class relations in
capitalist society, which consists of a proletariat, a non-proletarian mass of working people, a petty bourgeoisie and a
bourgeoisie. This alone yields an extremely complicated
transmission system owing to what has been created by capitalism,
quite apart from any red-tape in the Soviet administrative
machinery. And that is the main point to be considered in
analysing the difficulties of the trade unions’ “task”. Let me say this again: the actual differences
do not lie where Comrade Trotsky sees them but in the question of
how to approach the mass, win it over, and keep in touch with
it. I must say that had we made a detailed, even if small-scale,
study of our own experience and practices, we should have managed
to avoid the hundreds of quite unnecessary “differences” and errors of principle in which Comrade
Trotsky’s pamphlet abounds. Some of his theses, for instance, polemicise against “Soviet
trade-unionism”. As if we hadn’t enough trouble already, a new bogey has been invented. Who do you think it is?
Comrade Ryazanov, of all people. I have known him for twenty odd
years. You have known him less than that, but equally as well by
his work. You are very well aware that assessing slogans is not
one of his virtues, which he undoubtedly has. Shall we then
produce theses to show that “Soviet trade-unionism” is just something that Comrade Ryazanov happened to say with little
relevance? Is that being serious? If it is, we shall end up with
having “Soviet trade unionism”, “Soviet anti-peace-signing”, and what not!

A Soviet “ism” could be invented on every single point. ( Ryazanov : “Soviet anti-Brestism.”)
Exactly, “Soviet anti Brestism”.

While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky
falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’
state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for
the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is
a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was
natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but
it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is
the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?”
The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main
mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical
discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and
prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not
do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but
a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. ( Bukharin : “What kind of state? A
workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A
workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent
Congress of Soviets, [3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which
the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it . We have had to mark it with this
dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the
transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has
taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to
protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the
material and spiritual interests of the massively organised
proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we
shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we
actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good
deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do
not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or
abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of
the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which
it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to
protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their
state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of
protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our
state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.

I shall have more to say about this coalescing later on. But
the word itself shows that it is a mistake to conjure up an enemy
in the shape of “Soviet trade-unionism”, for “coalescing” implies the existence of
distinct things that have yet to be coalesced:
“coalescing” implies the need to be able to use measures of the state power to protect the material and spiritual
interests of the massively organised proletariat from that very same state power. When the coalescing has produced
coalescence and integration , we shall meet in congress for a business-like discussion of actual experience,
instead of “disagreements” on principle or theoretical reasoning in the abstract. There is an equally lame attempt to
find differences of principle with Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky,
whom Comrade Trotsky treats as trade union “bureaucrats”—I shall later on say which side in
this controversy tends to be bureaucratic. We all know that while
Comrade Ryazanov may love a slogan, and must have one which is all
but an expression of principle, it is not one of Comrade
Tomsky’s many vices. I think, therefore, that it would be
going a bit too far to challenge Comrade Tomsky to a battle of
principles on this score (as Comrade Trotsky has done). I am
positively astonished at this. One would have thought that we had
grown up since the days when we all sinned a great deal in the way
of factional, theoretical and various other disagreements—although we naturally did some good as
well. It is time we stopped inventing and blowing up differences
of principle and got down to practical work. I never knew that
Tomsky was eminently a theoretician or that he claimed to be one;
it may be one of his failings, but that is something else
again. Tomsky, who has been working very smoothly with the trade
union- movement, must in his position provide a reflection of this
complex transition—whether he should do so consciously or
unconsciously is quite another matter and I am not saying that he
has always done it consciously—so that if something is hurting the mass, and they do not know what it is, and he does not
know what it is ( applause , laughter ) but raises a howl, I say that is not a failing but should be put down to his
credit. I am quite sure that Tomsky has many partial theoretical
mistakes. And if we all sat down to a table and started
thoughtfully writing resolutions or theses, we should correct them
all; we might not even bother to do that because production work
is more interesting than the rectifying of minute theoretical
disagreements.

I come now to “industrial democracy”, shall I say, for Bukharin’s benefit. We all know that everyone has his
weak points, that even big men have little weak spots, and this
also goes for Bukharin. He seems to be incapable of resisting any
little word with a flourish to it. He seemed to derive an almost
sensuous pleasure from writing the resolution on industrial
democracy at the Central Committee Plenum on December 7. But the
closer I look at this “industrial democracy”, the more clearly I see that it is half-baked and theoretically false. It is
nothing but a hodge-podge. With this as an example, let me say
once again, at a Party meeting at least: “Comrade
N. I. Bukharin, the Republic, theory and you yourself will benefit
from less verbal extravagance.” ( Applause .)
Industry is indispensable. Democracy is a category proper only to
the political sphere. There can be no objection to the use of this
word in speeches or articles. An article takes up and clearly
expresses one relationship and no more. But it is quite strange to
hear you trying to turn this into a thesis, and to see you wanting
to coin it into a slogan, uniting the “ayes” and the “nays”; it is strange to hear you say, like Trotsky,
that the Party will have “to choose between two trends”. I shall deal separately with whether the Party must
do any “choosing” and who is to blame for putting the
Party in this position of having to “choose”. Things being what they are, we say: “At any rate, see that you
choose fewer slogans, like ’industrial democracy’, which contain nothing but confusion and are theoretically
wrong.” Both Trotsky and Bukharin failed to think out this
term theoretically and ended up in confusion. “Industrial
democracy” suggests things well beyond the circle of ideas
with which they were carried away. They wanted to lay greater
emphasis and focus attention on industry. It is one thing to
emphasise something in an article or speech; it is quite another
to frame it into a thesis and ask the Party to choose, and so I
say: cast your vote against it, because it is confusion. Industry
is indispensable, democracy is not. Industrial democracy breeds
some utterly false ideas. The idea of one-man management was
advocated only a little while ago. We must not make a mess of
things and confuse people: how do you expect them to know when you
want democracy, when one-man management, and when dictatorship. But on no account must we renounce dictatorship
either—I hear Bukharin behind me growling: “Quite right.” ( Laughter . Applause .)

But to go on. Since September we have been talking about
switching from the principle of priority to that of equalisation,
and we have said as much in the resolution of the all-Party
conference, which was approved by the Central Committee. [4] The question is not an easy one,
because we find that we have to combine equalisation with
priority, which are incompatible. But after all we do have some
knowledge of Marxism and have learned how and when opposites can
and must be combined; and what is most important is that in the
three and a half years of our revolution we have actually combined
opposites again and again.

The question obviously requires thoughtfulness and circumspection. After all, we did discuss these questions of
principle at those deplorable plenary meetings of the Central
Committee [4b] —which yielded the groups of seven and eight, and Comrade Bukharin’s celebrated
“buffer group” [6] —and we did establish that there was no easy transition from the priority
principle to that of equalisation. We shall have to put in a bit
of effort to implement the decision of the September
Conference. After all, these opposite terms can be combined either
into a cacophony or a symphony. Priority implies preference for
one industry out of a group of vital industries because of its
greater urgency. What does such preference entail? How great can
it be? This is a difficult question, and I must say that it will
take more than zeal to solve it; it may even take more than a
heroic effort on the part of a man who is possibly endowed with
many excellent qualities and who will do wonders on the right job;
this is a very peculiar matter and calls for the correct
approach. And so if we are to raise this question of priority and
equalisation we must first of all give it some careful thought,
but that is just what we fail to find in Comrade Trotsky’s
work; the further he goes in revising his original theses, the
more mistakes he makes. Here is what we find in his latest
theses:

“The equalisation line should be pursued in the sphere of
consumption , that is, the conditions of the working people’s existence as individuals. In the sphere of
production , the principle of priority will long remain
decisive for us”. . . (thesis 41, p. 31 of Trotsky’s pamphlet).

This is a real theoretical muddle. It is all wrong. Priority
is preference, but it is nothing without preference in consumption. If all the preference I get is a couple of ounces of
bread a day I am not likely to be very happy. The preference part
of priority implies preference in consumption as well. Otherwise,
priority is a pipe dream, a fleeting cloud, and we are, after all,
materialists. The workers are also materialists; if you say shock
work, they say, let’s have the bread, and the clothes, and
the beef. That is the view we now take, and have always taken, in
discussing these questions time without number with reference to
various concrete matters in the Council of Defence, [7] when one
would say: “I’m doing shock work”, and would clamour for boots, and another: “I get the boots, otherwise
your shock workers won’t hold out, and all your priority
will fizzle out.”

We find, therefore, that in the theses the approach to equalisation and priority is basically wrong. What is more, it is
a retreat from what has actually been achieved and tested in
practice. We can’t have that; it will lead to no good.

Then there is the question of “coalescing “. The best thing to do about “coalescing” right now is to
keep quiet. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. Why so? It is
because we have got down to coalescing in practice; there is not a
single large gubernia economic council, no major department of the
Supreme Economic Council, the People’s Commissariat for
Communications, etc., where something is not being coalesced in
practice. But are the results all they should be? Ay, there’s the rub. Look at the way coalescence has actually
been carried out, and what it has produced. There are countless
decrees introducing coalescence in the various institutions. But
we have yet to make a business-like study of our own practical
experience; we have yet to go into the actual results of all this;
we have yet to discover what a certain type of coalescence has
produced in a particular industry, what happened when member X of
the gubernia trade union council held post Y in the gubernia
economic council, how many months he was at it, etc. What we have
not failed to do is to invent a disagreement on coalescence as a
principle, and make a mistake in the process, but then we have
always been quick at that sort of thing; but we were not up to the
mark when it came to analysing and verifying our own experience. When we have congresses of Soviets with committees not
only on the application of the better-farming law in the various
agricultural areas but also on coalescence and its results in the
Saratov Gubernia flour-milling industry, the Petrograd metal
industry, the Donbas coal industry, etc., and when these
committees, having mustered the facts, declare: “We have
made a study of so and so”, then I shall say: “Now we have got down to business, we have finally grown up.” But
could anything be more erroneous and deplorable than the fact that
we are being presented with “theses” splitting hairs over the principle of coalescence, after we have been at it for
three years? We have taken the path of coalescence, and I am sure
it was the right thing to do, but we have not yet made an adequate
study of the results of our experience. That is why keeping quiet
is the only common sense tactics on the question of coalescence.

A study must be made of practical experience. I have signed
decrees and resolutions containing instructions on practical
coalescence, and no theory is half so important as practice. That
is why when I hear: “Let’s discuss
’coalescence’”, I say: “Let’s analyse what we have done.” There is no doubt that we have
made many mistakes. It may well be that a great part of our
decrees need amending. I accept that, for I am not in the least
enamoured of decrees. But in that case let us have some practical
proposals as to what actually has to be altered. That would be a
business-like approach. That would not be a waste of time. That
would not lead to bureaucratic projecteering But I find that that
is exactly what’s wrong with Trotsky’s “Practical Conclusions”, Part VI of his pamphlet. He
says that from one-third to one-half of the members of the All
Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Presidium of the
Supreme Eccnomic Council should serve on both bodies, and from
one-half to two-thirds, on the collegiums, etc. Why so? No special
reason, just “rule of thumb”. It is true, of course, that rule of thumb is frequently used to lay down similar
proportions in our decrees, but then why is it inevitable in
decrees? I hold no brief for all decrees as such and have no
intention of making them appear better than they actually
are. Quite often rule of thumb is used in them to fix such purely
arbitrary proportions as one-half or one-third of the total number
of members, etc. When a decree says that, it means: try doing it
this way, and later on we shall assess the results of your
“try out”. We shall later sort out the results. After sorting them out, we shall move on. We are working on coalescence
and we expect to improve it because we are becoming more efficient
and practical-minded.

But I seem to have lapsed into “production propaganda”. That can’t be helped. It is a question
that needs dealing with in any discussion of the role of the trade
unions in production.

My next question will therefore be that of production propaganda. This again is a practical matter and we approach it
accordingly. Government agencies have already been set up to
conduct production propaganda. I can’t tell whether they are
good or had; they have to be tested and there’s no need for
any “theses” on this subject at all.

If we take a general view of the part trade unions have to play
in industry, we need not, in this question of democracy, go beyond
the usual democratic practices. Nothing will come of such tricky
phrases as “industrial democracy”, for they are all wrong. That is the first point. The second is production
propaganda. The agencies are there. Trotsky’s theses deal
with production propaganda. That is quite useless, because in this
case theses are old hat. We do not know as yet whether the
agencies are good or bad. But we can tell after testing them in
action. Let us do some studying and polling. Assuming, let us say,
that a congress has 10 committees with 10 men on each, let us ask:
“You have been dealing with production propaganda, haven
’t you? What are the results?” Having made a study of this, we should reward those who have done especially well, and
discard what has proved unsuccessful. We do have some practical
experience; it may not be much but it is there; yet we are being
dragged away from it and back to these “theses on principles”. This looks more like a
“reactionary” movement than “trade unionism”.

There is then the third point, that of bonuses. Here is the role and task of the trade unions in
production: distribution of bonuses in kind . A start on
it has been made. Things have been set in motion. Five hundred
thousand poods of grain had been allocated for the purpose, and
one hundred and seventy thousand has been distributed. How well
and how correctly, I cannot tell. The Council of People’s
Commissars was told that they were not making a good job of this
distribution, which turned out to be an additional wage rather
than a bonus. This was pointed out by officials of the trade
unions and the People’s Commissariat for Labour. We appointed a commission to look into the matter but that has not
yet been done. One hundred and seventy thousand poods of grain has
been given away, but this needs to be done in such a way as to
reward those who display the heroism, the zeal, the talent, and
the dedication of the thrifty manager, in a word, all the
qualities that Trotsky extols. But the task now is not to extol
this in theses but to provide the bread and the beef. Wouldn’t it be better, for instance, to deprive one
category of workers of their beef and give it as a bonus to
workers designated as “shock” workers? We do not renounce that kind of priority. That is a priority we need. Let us
take a closer look at our practices in the application of
priority.

The fourth point is disciplinary courts. I hope Comrade
Bukharin will not take offence if I say that without disciplinary
courts the role of the trade unions in industry, “industrial
democracy “, is a mere trifle. But the fact is that there is
nothing at all about this in your theses. “Great grief!” is therefore the only thing that can be said about
Trotsky’s theses and Bukharin’s attitude, from the standpoint of principle, theory and practice.

I am confirmed in this conclusion when I say to myself: yours
is not a Marxist approach to the question. This quite apart from
the fact that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in the
theses It is not a Marxist approach to the evaluation of the
“role and tasks of the trade unions”, because such a broad subject cannot be tackled without giving thought to the
peculiar political aspects of the present situation. After all,
Comrade Bukharin and I did say in the resolution of the Ninth
Congress of the R.C.P. on trade unions that politics is the most
concentrated expression of economics.

If we analysed the current political situation, we might say
that we were going through a transition period within a transition
period. The whole of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a
transition period, but we now have, you might say, a heap of new
transition periods: the demobilisation of the army, the end of the
war, the possibility of having a much longer breathing space in
peace than before, and a more solid transition from the war front
to the labour front. This—and this alone—is causing a change in the attitude of the proletarian class to the peasant
class. What kind of change is it? Now this calls for a close
examination, but nothing of the sort follows from your theses. Until we have taken this close look, we must learn to
wait. The people are overweary, considerable stocks that had to be
used for certain priority industries have been so used; the
proletariat’s attitude to the peasantry is undergoing a
change. The war weariness is terrible, and the needs have
increased, but production has increased insufficiently or not at
all. On the other hand, as I said in my report to the Eighth
Congress of Soviets, our application of coercion was correct and
successful whenever we had been able to back it up from the start
with persuasion. I must say that Trotsky and Bukharin have
entirely failed to take account of this very important consideration.

Have we laid a sufficiently broad and solid base of persuasion
for all these new production tasks? No, indeed, we have barely
started doing it. We have not yet made the masses a party to
them. Now I ask you, can the masses tackle these new assignments
right away? No, they cannot, because while there is now no need
for special propaganda on the question of, say, whether Wrangel
the landowner should be overthrown or whether any sacrifices
should be spared for the purpose, we have just started to work on
this question of the role of the trade unions in production, and I
mean the business aspect of the matter and not the question of
“principle”, the reasoning about “Soviet trade-unionism” and such like trifles; we have just set up
the agency for production propaganda, but we have as yet no
experience. We have introduced the payment of bonuses in kind, but
we lack the experience. We have set up the disciplinary courts,
but we are not yet aware of the results. Still, from the political
standpoint it is the preparedness of the masses that is
crucial. Has the question been prepared, studied, weighed, and
considered from this angle? No, far from it. And that is a basic,
deep-going and dangerous political mistake, because if ever there
was need to act according to the rule of measuring your cloth
seven times before cutting it once, it is in this question. We
find instead that the cutting has been started in earnest without
a single measure having been taken. We are told that “the
Party must choose between two trends”, but the false slogan
of “industrial democracy “ was invented without a single measuring.

We must try to understand the meaning of this slogan, especially in the present political situation, when the masses are
confronted with bureaucratic practices in visual form, and when we
have the question itself on the agenda. Comrade Trotsky says in
his theses that on the question of workers’ democracy it
remains for the Congress to “enter it unanimously in the
record”. That is not correct. There is more to it than an
entry in the record; an entry in the record fixes what has been
fully weighed and measured, whereas the question of industrial
democracy is far from having been fully weighed, tried and
tested. Just think how the masses may interpret this slogan of
“industrial democracy”.

“We, the rank and file who work among the masses, say that there is need for new blood, that things must be corrected
and the bureaucrats ousted, and here you are beating about the
bush, talking about getting on with production and displaying
democracy in achieving success in production; we refuse to get on
with production under such a bureaucratic set-up of central and
other boards, we want a different one.” You have not given
the masses a chance to discuss things, to see the point, and to
think it over; you have not allowed the Party to gain fresh
experience but are already acting in haste, overdoing it, and
producing formulas which are theoretically false. Just think how
this mistake will be further amplified by unduly zealous
functionaries! A political leader is responsible not only for the
quality of his leadership but also for the acts of those he
leads. He may now and again be unaware of what they are about, he
may often wish they had not done some thing, but the responsibility still falls on him.

I now come to the November 9 and December 7 plenary meetings of
the Central Committee, which gave expression to all these mistakes
in action, rather than in logical categories, premises and
theoretical reasoning. This threw the Centrai Committee into
confusion; it is the first time this has happened in our
Party’s history, in time of revolution, and it is dangerous. The crux was that there was a division, there was the
“buffer” group of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky and
Serebryakov, which did the most harm and created the most
confusion.

You will recall the story of Glavpolitput [8] and
Tsektran. [9] The resolution of the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. in April 1920 said that Glavpolitput was being set
up as a “temporary” institution, and that conditions should be brought back to normal “as soon as
possible”. In September you read, “Return to normal conditions”. [9b] The plenary meeting was held in
November (November 9), and Trotsky came up with his theses and
ideas about trade-unionism. How ever fine some of his points about
production propaganda may be, he should have been told that all
this was neither here nor there, quite beside the mark, and a step
backward it is something the C.C. should not be dealing with at
present. Bukharin says: “It is very good.” It may be very good, but that is no answer to the question. After a heated
debate, a resolution is adopted by 10 to 4 saying in a polite and
comradely way that Tsektran has itself “already got down to
. . . strengthening and developing methods of proletarian
democracy within the union”. It adds that Tsektran must
“take an active part in the general work of the All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions, being incorporated in it on an
egual footing with other trade union bodies”.

What is the gist of the Central Committee’s decision? It
is obviously this: “Comrades of Tsektran! You must do more
than go through the motions of carrying out Congress and
C.C. decisions, you must actually do so to help all trade unions
by your work, wipe out every trace of red tape, favouritism,
arrogance, the we-are-better-than-you attitude, and boasts of
being richer and getting more aid.”

We then get down to brass tacks. A commission is set up, and
the names of its members are published. Trotsky walks out, refuses
to serve on the commission, and disrupts its work. What are his
reasons? There is only one. Lutovinov is apt to play at
opposition. That is true, and that also goes for Osinsky. Frankly
speaking, it is not a pleasant game. But do you call that a
reason? Osinsky was making an excellent job of the seed
campaign. The thing to do was to work with him, in spite of his
“opposition campaign”, for this business of disrupting the work of a commission is bureaucratic, un-Soviet, un-socialist,
incorrect and politically harmful. Such methods are doubly
incorrect and politically harmful at a time when there is need to
separate the wheat from the chaff within the “opposition”. When Osinsky conducts an
“opposition campaign”, I tell him: “This is a harmful campaign”, but it is a pleasure to see him conduct
the seed campaign. I shall not deny that, like Ishchenko and
Shlyapnikov, Lutovinov is making a mistake in his “opposition campaign”, but that is no reason to
disrupt the work of a commission.

What did the commission in fact signify? It signified transition to practical work from intellectualist talk about
sterile disagreements. What the commission was due to discuss and
deal with was production propaganda, bonuses, and disciplinary
courts. It was then that Comrade Bukharin, the head of the
“buffer group”, together with Preobrazhensky and
Serebryakov, seeing the Central Committee dangerously divided, set
out to create a buffer, one that I find difficult to describe in
parliamentary terms. If I could draw cartoons as well as Comrade
Bukharin does, I would depict him as a man pouring a bucket of
kerosene on the flames, and give the following caption:
“Buffer kerosene”. Comrade Bukharin wanted to create something, and his intentions were no doubt most sincere and
entirely in the “buffer” spirit. But the buffer failed to materialise; the upshot was that he failed to take account of
the political situation and, what is more, made some theoretical
mistakes.

Should all such disputes have been brought up for broad
discussion? Was it worth going into these trifles? Was it worth
wasting the few precious weeks before a Party congress? Wecould
have used the timo to analyse and study the question of bonuses,
disciplinary courts and coalescence. Those are the questions we
could have given a practical solution to in the
C.C. commission. If Comrade Bukharin wished to create a buffer,
instead of giving a display of barking up the wrong tree, he
should have demanded and insisted that Comrade Trotsky remained on
the commission. If he had said and done that, we should have been
on the right track, with the commission looking into the practical
aspects of such things as one-man management, democracy,
appointees, etc.

But to go on. By December (the December 7 Plenary Meeting), we
were already faced with this flare-up of the watermen, which
intensified the conflict, and as a result there were now eight
votes in the Central Committee to our seven. Comrade Bukharin, in
an effort to bring about a “reconciliation” through the use of his “buffer”, hastily wrote the
“theoretical” part of the December plenum’s resolution, but with the commission a shambles, nothing, of
course, could come of it.

Where did Glavpolitput and Tsektran err? Certainly not in their
use of coercion; that goes to their credit. Their mistake was that
they failed to switch to normal trade union work at the right time
and without conflict, as the Ninth Congress of the
R.C.P. required; they failed to adapt themselves to the trade
unions and help them by meeting them on an equal footing. Heroism,
zeal, etc., are the positive side of military experience; red-tape
and arrogance are the negative side of the experience of the worst
military types. Trotsky’s theses, whatever his intentions,
do not tend to play up the best, but the worst in military
experience. It must be borne in mind that a political leader is
responsible not only for his own policy but also for the acts of
those he leads.

The last thing I want to tell you about—something I called myself a fool for yesterday—is that I had altogether
overlooked Comrade Rudzutak’s theses. His weak point is that
he does not speak in ringing tones; he is not an impressive or
eloquent speaker. He is liable to be overlooked. Unable to attend
the meetings yesterday, I went through my material and found a
printed leaflet issued for the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union
Conference, which was-held from November 2 to 6, 1920. [11] It is
called: The Tasks of the Trade Unions in Production . Let
me read it to you, it is not long.

Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference

The tasks of the trade unions in production (Theses Of Comrade Rudzutak’s Report)

1. Immediately after the October Revolution, the trade unions
proved to be almost the only bodies which, while exercising workers’ control , were able and bound to
undertake the work of organising and managing production . In that early period of the Soviet power, no
state apparatus for the management of the national economy had yet
been set up, while sabotage on the part of factory owners and
senior technicians brought the working class squarely up against
the task of safeguarding industry and getting the whole of the
country’s economic apparatus back into normal running order.

2. In the subsequent period of the Supreme Economic
Council’s work, when a considerable part of it consisted in
liquidating private enterprises and organising state management to
run them, the trade unions carried on this work jointly and side by side with the state economic management
agencies .

This parallel set-up was explained and justified by the weakness of the state agencies; historically it was vindicated
by the establishment of full contact between the trade unions and
the economic management agencies.

3. The centre of gravity in the management of industry
and the drafting of a production programme shifted to these agencies as a result of their administration, the gradual
spread of their control over production and management and
the-co-ordination of the several parts. In view of this, the work
of the trade unions in organising production was reduced to
participation in forming the collegiums of chief administrations, central boards, and factory managements.

4. At the present time, we are once again squarely faced with
the question of establishing the closest possible ties between the
economic agencies of the Soviet Republic and the trade unions, for
the best use must be made of every working individual, and the
whole mass of producers must be induced to take a conscious part
in production, for the state apparatus of economic management,
gradually gaining in size and complexity, has been transformed
into a huge bureaucratic machine which is out of all proportion to
the scale of industry, and is inevitably impelling the trade
unions to take direct part in organising production not only
through its men in the economic agencies but also as an organised
whole.

5. While the Supreme Economic Council’s point of
departure in drawing up an overall production programme is the availability of the material elements of production (raw
materials, fuel, the state of machinery, etc.), the trade unions
must look at it from the standpoint of organising labour
for the tasks of production and its best use. Therefore, the
overall production programme , in whole and in part , must be drawn up with the participation of the trade unions in order to combine the use of the material
resources of production and manpower in the best possible way.

6. Only if the whole mass of those engaged in production
consciously take a hand in establishing real labour discipline, fighting deserters from the labour front, etc., can
these tasks be fulfilled. Bureaueratic methods and orders
will not do; it must be brought home to each participant in
production that his production tasks are appropriate and
important; that each must take a hand not only in fulfilling his
assignments, but also play an intelligent part in correcting any
technical and organisational defects in the sphere of production.

The tasks of the trade unions in this sphere are tremendous. They must teach their members in each shop
and in each factory to react to and take account of all defects in the use of manpower arising from improper handling
of technical means or unsatisfactory management. The sum total of the experience gained by separate enterprises and industry
as a whole must be used to combat red-tape, bureaucratic practices
and carelessness.

7. In order to lay special emphasis on the importance of these
production tasks, they must be organisationally worked into
current operations. As the economic departments of the trade unions, which are being set up in pursuance of the decision
of the Third All-Russia Congress, extend their activity, they must
gradually explain and define the nature of all trade union
work. Thus, in the present social conditions, when all of
production is geared to the satisfaction of the working
people’s needs, wage rates and bonuses must be closely tied in with and must depend on the extent to which the production plan is fulfilled . Bonuses in kind and partial payment of
wages in kind must be gradually transformed into a system of workers’ supply which depends on the level of labour
productivity.

8. Trade union work on these lines would, on the one hand, put
an end to the existence of parallel bodies ( political departments , etc .) and, on the other, restore the
close ties between the masses and the economic management
agencies.

9. After the Third Congress, the trade unions largely failed
to carry out their programme for participation in economic
construction owing, first, to the military conditions ,
and second, to their organisational weakness and isolation from the administrative and practical work of the
economic bodies.

10. In view of this, the trade unions should set themselves
the following immediate practical tasks: a) the most active
participation in solving production and management problems; b)
direct participation, with the respective economic agencies,
in setting up competent administrative bodies; c) careful
consideration of the various types of management bodies ,
and their influence on production; d) unfailing participation in
working out and laying down economic plans and production
programmes; e) organisation of labour in accordance with
the economic priorities; f) development of an extensive
organization for production agitation and propaganda .

11. The economic departments of the trade unions and
of their organisations must be actually transformed into powerful
and expeditious levers for the trade unions’ systematic
participation in organising production.

12. In the matter of providing workers with steady material
supplies, the trade unions must shift their influence onto the distribution bodies of the Commissariat for Food , both local
and central, taking a practical and business-like part and
exercising controI in all the distributive bodies, and paying special attention to the activity of central and gubernia
workers’ supply commissions .

13. In view of the fact that the narrow departmental interests
of some chief administrations, central boards, etc., have plunged
the so-called “priority” into a state of utter confusion, the trade unions must everywhere uphold the real order
of economic priorities and review the existing system so as to
determine them in accordance with the actual importance of the
various industries and the availability of material resources in
the country.

14. Special attention must be given to the so-called model
group of factories to help them set an example through the
organisation of efficient management, labour discipline and trade
union activities.

15. In labour organisation, apart from the introduction of a
harmonious wage-rate system and the overhaul of output rates, the
trade unions should take a firm hand in fighting the various
forms of labour desertion (absenteeism, lateness, etc.). The disciplinary courts, which have not received due
attention until now, must be turned into a real means of combating
breaches of proletarian labour discipline.

16. The economic departments must be entrusted with the
fulfilment of these tasks and also the drafting of a practical
plan for production propaganda and a number of measures to improve
the economic condition of the workers. It is necessary, therefore,
to authorise the economic department of the All-Russia Central
Council of Trade Unions to call a special All-Russia Conference of
Economic Departments in the near future to discuss the practical
problems of economic construction in connection with the world of
state economic agencies.

I hope you see now why I called myself names. There you have a
platform, and it is very much better than the one Comrade Trotsky
wrote after a great deal of thinking, and the one Comrade Bukharin
wrote (the December 7 Plenum resolution) without any thinking at
all. All of us members of the Central Committee who have been out
of touch with the trade Union movement for many years would profit
from Comrade Rudzutak’s experience, and this also goes for
Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Bukharin. The trade unions have
adopted this platform.

We all entirely forgot about the disciplinary courts, but
“industrial democracy”, without bonuses in kind or disciplinary courts, is nothing but empty talk.

I make a comparison between Rudzutak’s theses and those
submitted by Trotsky to the Central Committee. At the end of
thesis 5, I read:

“. . a reorganisation of the unions must be started right
away, that is, a selection of functionaries must be above all made
from precisely that angle”. . . .

There you have an example of the real bureaucratic approach:
Trotsky and Krestinsky selecting the trade union “functionaries”!

Let me say this once again: here you have an explanation of
Tsektran’s mistake. It was not wrong to use pressure; that
goes to its credit. It made the mistake of failing to cope with
the general tasks of all the trade unions, of failing to act
itself and to help all the trade unions to employ the disciplinary
comrades’ courts more correctly, swiftly and successfully. When I read about the disciplinary courts in Comrade
Rudzutak’s theses it occurred to me that there might be a
decree on this matter. And in fact there was. It is the
Regulations Governing Workers’ Disciplinary
Comrades’ Courts, issued on November 14, 1919 ( Collection of Statutes No. 537).

The trade unions have the key role in these courts I don’t know how good these courts are, how well they
function, and whether they always function. A study of our own
practical experience would be a great deal more useful than
anything Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin have written.

Let me end by summing up everything there is on the question. I
must say that it was a great mistake to put up these disagreements
for broad Party discussion and the Party Congress. It was a
political mistake. We should have had a business-like discussion
in the commission, and only there, and would have in that case
moved forward; as it is we are sliding back, and shall keep
sliding back to abstract theoretical propositions for several
weeks, instead of dealing with the problem in a business-like
manner. Personally, I am sick and tired of it, and quite apart
from my illness, it would give me great pleasure to get away from
it all. I am prepared to seek refuge anywhere.

The net result is that there are a number of theoretical
mistakes in Trotsky’s and Bukharin’s theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in
principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is
utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky’s “theses” are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is
bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress
will, I am sure, condemn and reject it. ( Prolonged , stormy applause .)

Endnotes

[1]
Lenin’s first speech to Party activists in the discussion of
the role and tasks of the trade unions in socialist construction
was delivered at the Bolshoi Theatre on December 30, 1920.

Trotsky had started the discussion in the
Communist group of the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference on
November 3 with his call “to tighten the screws of War
Communism” as opposed to the Party’s line to stimulate democratic activity in the trade unions.

The disagreements turned “on the different approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and
keeping in touch with it” ( Lenin ). The disagreements in the group were brought before the Central
Committee Plenary Meeting. But Trotsky’s December 24 speech
before the delegates of the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets
and trade union activists carried the issue outside the Central
Committee. On December 25, he published his views in a pamphlet.

Lenin was against any discussion, believing that it distracted the Party’s attention and forces from the
immediate tasks of fighting the economic dislocation and the
famine. In his-speeches and articles— The Party Crisis and Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin —he
put forward and developed a number of important principles
underlying the trade unions’ role in the dictatorship of the
proletariat and their tasks in socialist construction.

The discussion lasted more than two months. The overwhelming majority of the Party organisations approved
Lenin’s platform and rejected the opposition’s. The results of the discussion were summed up at the Tenth Congress of
the Party on March 8-16, 1921.

[2]
On its agenda were the current tasks of economic construction and
the question of the trade union movement. It defined the
short-term economic tasks and stressed the need for the trade
unions’ active participation in socialist construction. It
adopted the following resolutions: “The Current Tasks of
Econormic Construction” and “The Trade Unions and
Their Organisation”. See K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh i resheniakh syezdov, konferentsi i plenumov TsK (The
C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses,
Conferences and C.C Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954, pp. 477-90,
490-94).

[3] The reference is to the Eighth All-Russia
Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, Red Army and Cossack Deputies held in Moscow on December 22-29, 1920. It
was attended by 2,537 delegates, the greatest number ever. Of them
1,728 had voice and vote, and 809, voice only. Of the total number
of delegates 91.7 per cent were Communists; 2.7, Communist
sympathisers; 3.9, non-party people; 0.3, Mensheviks; 0.3,
Bundists; 0.15, Left S.R.s; 0.15, anarchists, and 0.8, from other
parties.

The Congress met at a time when the war against the foreign intervention and internal counter-revolution was
coming to a end, and when the economic front stood out as
“the main and most important one” ( Lenin
). On its agenda there were the following questions, the chief of
which had been discussed beforehand by the Communist group: report
on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and
the Council of People’s Commissars, electrification of
Russia; rehabilitation of industry and transport; development of
agricultural production and promotion of farming; efficiency of
Soviet establishments and the struggle against bureaucratic
practices. These problems were thrashed out in three sections:
industry, agriculture and Soviet administration.

Lenin guided much of the work of the
Congress. At the plenary meeting on December 22, he gave a report
on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and
the Council of People’s Commissars, and on December 23, he
summed up the debate. He spoke six times at the Communist group
meetings on December 21, 22, 24 and 27 on the question of
concessions and the draft law on measures to consolidate and
develop peasant farming. By an overwhelming majority, the Congress
adopted a resolution on Lenin’s report, approving the government’s activity, and rejected a draft resolution
motioned by the other delegates.

The Congress adopted a plan for the electrification of the country (GOELRO), worked out on
Lenin’s initiative and instructions. This was the first
long-range economic plan of the Soviet state and Lenin called it
“the second Party Programme”. He also wrote the resolution on Krzhizhanovsky’s report.

Another major question on the agenda was a draft law on measures to consolidate and develop peasant farming,
which had been adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars
on December 14, 1920. Lenin stressed that the law was “a
kind of a focus around which hundreds of decrees and bills of the
Soviet power were grouped”. Lenin took part in the discussion of its principal clauses by the non-Party peasant
delegates to the Congress at a special meeting on December 22, and
by the Communist group on December 24 and 27. The draft law was
adopted unanimously.

The Congress passed a comprehensive resolution to improve and reorganise the entire Soviet apparatus as required
by the transition to peaceful economic construction. It regulated
relations between central and local organs of power and
administration. The Congress also discussed the reorganisation of
the whole system of economic management in accordance with the new
economic tasks, and approved a new statute of the Council of
Labour and Defence.

It instituted the Order of the Red Banner of Labour as an award for dedication, initiative, efficiency
and hard work in solving economic tasks.

[4]
The reference is to the resolution of the Ninth All-Russia
Conference of the R.C.P.(B.), “The Current Tasks of Party
Organisation”. See K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh
. . . (The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of
Congresses, Conferences and C.C. Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954,
pp. 506-12).

[4b] The reference is to the November and
December plenary meeting of the Central Committee in 1920. For the
text of their resolutions see Pravda No. 255 of November
13, and No. 281 of December 14, and also Izvestia of the C.C., R.C.P. [5] No. 26 of December 20.

[5]
Izvestia of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party was an information organ dealing with Party
problems. It was published under a resolution of the Eighth
Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) as a weekly supplement to
Pravda from May 28, 1919, and as an independent organ from October 1920.

In 1929, it was transformed into a fortnightly, Partiinoye Stroitelstvo ( Party Construction ),
and in June 1946 renamed Partiinaya Zhizn ( Party Life ).

[6]
The “ buffer group ” took shape during the trade union discussion in 1920-21. It was headed by N. I. Bukharin
and included Y. Larin, Y. A. Preobrazhensky, L. P. Serebryakov,
G. Y. Sokolnikov, V. N. Yakovleva and others. They tried to
reconcile the differences between Lenin and Trotsky’s views,
acting as a “buffer” in disagreements on the question of the role and tasks of the trade unions. In fact Bukharin
attacked Lenin and defended Trotsky.

Lenin characterised the “buffer” group and its anti-Party views in his article, “The Party
Crisis”, in the pamphlet, Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin , and elsewhere.

[7]
The Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defence was set up by the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee on November 30, 1918, to implement its September 2,
1918 decree which proclaimed the Soviet Republic a military
camp. Lenin was appointed its Chairman. It was vested with
extraordinary powers in mobilising the resources of the Soviet
state for defence in that exceptionally difficult period.

The Council was the Republic’s chief military-economic and planning centre during the intervention and
Civil War and also controlled the activity of the Revolutionary
Military Council and other military organs. Its decrees were
binding on all Soviet citizens, as well as on central and local
agencies. Early in April 1920, it was reorganised into the Council
of Labour and Defence (C.L.D.) ( Soviet Truda i Oborony —STO), and under a decision of the Eighth
All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1920 it began to
operate as a government commission responsible for co-ordinating
the work of all economic departments. It was abolished in
1937.

[8]
Glavpolitput —the Chief Political Department of the
People’s Commissariat for Communications—was formed as a provisional organ under the direct leadership of the
Party’s Central Committee in February 1919, and in January
1920 it was renamed the Chief Political Administration. It took
extraordinary measures to rehabilitate the railways that had been
ruined in the imperialist war and the Civil War, to improve Party
and political work among railway workers, and to strengthen and
stimulate the activity of the railwaymen’s trade union and
make it an instrument for the further development of the
railways. It introduced military discipline on the railways to
gear them to the war effort. The measures effected by Glavpolitput
saved the railways from utter ruin, but produced bureaucratic and
undemocratic practices in the trade unions and a tendency to lose
touch with the masses.

It was abolished by a Central Committee decision on December 7, 1920, at the end of the Civil War and the
start of peaceful development.

[9]
Tsektran —the Central Committee of the Joint Trade
Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers. In September 1920, the
two unions were merged to set up a strong centralised administration capable of tackling the tasks of rapidly
rehabilitating transport, whose stoppages tended to paralyse the
national economy. Its extraordinary powers and military methods of
work, which sprang from the enormity of the tasks before it, bred
bureaucratic practices, the appointments system, administration by
injunction, etc. The plenary meetings of the C.C. on November 8
and December 7, 1920, condemned Tsektran’s methods and adopted a decision to incorporate it into the general system of
the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions on a par with other
unions. Tsektrall was advised to change its methods, develop trade
union democracy, make all trade union bodies elective, reduce the
appointments system, etc. The First All-Russia Congress of
Transport Workers in March 1921 called by the Central Committee of
the Party expelled those communists who opposed this reform from
the Tsektran leadership and outlined new methods of work.

[9b] See Izvestia of the C.C., R.C.P.
No. 26, p. 2, the Resolution of the September Plenum of the C.C.,
Paragraph 3, which said: “The C.C. further believes that
there has been a great improvement in the grave situation in the
transport workers’ unions, which produced Glavpolitput and
Politvod, [10] as temporary levers for assisting and organising the work. Therefore, incorporation of these
organisations in the union, as union agencies being adapted to and
absorbed by the union apparatus, can and must now proceed.”

[10]
Politvod —the Chief Political Administration of
Water Transport of the People’s Commissariat for
Communications—was set up in April 1920 as an agency of
Glavpolitput to carry on political education among the workers and
exercise political control over the technical and administrative
personnel; to put water transport on its feet as soon as possible;
to stimulate higher productivity and improve discipline. It was
dissolved in December 1920.

[11]
The Party wanted the trade unions’ work reorganised in accordance with the tasks of peaceful socialist construction,
democracy developed and military methods of administration
abolished. This was opposed by Trotsky, who demanded, at the
Communist group meeting on November 3, a “shake-up” of the trade unions. He wanted “the screws tightened” and
the trade unions governmentalised immediately. He disagreed on the
“approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and keeping in touch with it”. His speech started the Party
discussion on the trade unions, but the Communist delegates
rejected his demands, for their realisation would have abolished
the trade unions and undermined the dictatorship of the
proletariat. That is why his theses were discussed by the Party
Central Committee. At the November 8 C.C. Plenary Meeting, Lenin
came out with his own theses which, when put to the vote, won 8
votes, as against 7 for Trotsky’s.