1. Remarks on Trotsky’s Brochure “The Role and Tasks of Trade Unions”

Trotsky:

** In fine – in the end. Ed.

*** Fundamentally incorrect! Ed.

**** Right from the outset; in principle. Ed.

Thesis 7 (i. f., p. 8): “class-based economic struggle has been abandoned.” Incorrect!

Thesis 7 (i. f., p. 9): “everything is > curtailed, unsystematic”??? Incorrect.

Thesis 8, i. f.: “to organize production” (italics) = to the program ββ

Thesis 9 (p. 10): … “directly” (nonsense!)

Thesis 9 (i. f.) “there can be no” specialists in production organization or in trade union work (nonsense! There can be!!).

Thesis 10: “the concentration in the hands of the unions of all control over production” (= the program) No. Incorrect.

(The program = “to move toward actual concentration—not over production itself… but over each branch of industry,” Thesis 10, i. f.)

(γγ)

NB

(not this one)

Thesis 12, i. f.: “they foster a spirit of corporate insularity” “a tendency to distrust new workers”

…“they perpetuate vestiges of guild mentality”…

Thesis 14: Ryazanov maintains that the unions should “protect or defend their material and spiritual interests.”

“Soviet trade unionism.”

Nonsense. Ryazanov is right here.

151 This refers to the resolution adopted by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on December 7, 1920, concerning the conflict between the communist waterway workers and the communist faction within the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies—a resolution cited by Trotsky in paragraph 18 of his brochure. The resolution had been proposed by Bukharin and passed with Trotsky’s support, despite opposition from Lenin and his supporters.

The conflict arose out of dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic methods employed by the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, which failed to implement the resolutions of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions regarding the transition to democratic working practices.

Thesis 20, i. f.: the working “masses” must “get to know” the economic administrator and “renew and strengthen their trust in him.”

[v.v.[50], the subject is not quite right. It is he who must win them over, not they who must win him over.] “Appointment”—is it an inevitable complement to “productive impotence”?

Thesis 26: The fight against bureaucratism… is it, above all, a “constitutive part” of the trade unions’ work? (A slip of the tongue!)

More than a proliferation of oversight bodies, what is needed is rectification. (Very good! For Rabkrin!)

* Summa summarum – the ultimate conclusion. Ed.

VI. Practical Conclusions

*I see what is good, I praise it, yet I am drawn to what is bad (Ovid, “Metamorphoses”). Ed.

Thesis 41: Consumption—equality.

Production—intensity. (Incorrect.)

“Fractional attacks” in the theses:

“backwards” (1); “professionalist conservatism within the leading ranks” (8); “the VTsIK is entirely removed from core economic work” (9); “the personnel composition of the leading bodies has changed only to a limited extent” (8); αα (th. 6); ββ (th. 8); γγ (th. 10); δδ (th. 11, beginning); εε (th. 12, i. f.); ζζ (th. 15, i. f.); ηη (th. 24); θθ (th. 29, i. f.)

2. Notes on the Brochure “Once Again on Trade Unions, on the Current Situation, and on the Errors of Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin”

Once Again on Trade Unions, on the Current Situation, and on the Error of Comrade Trotsky α Theoretical Disagreements.

* Versus – against. Ed.

δ The Repudiation of the Ninth Congress of the RCP

Appointment—yes or no?

Zinoviev’s “double-dealing” (Trotsky, 27).

ε One should not exaggerate.

ζ There is no evil without some good.

===

The “topics” (not chapters) are as follows:

Our Disagreements (α)

Trotsky’s Factionalism and Factional Obsessions (β + γ)

The Repudiation of the Ninth Congress of the RCP (δ)

The Danger of Overstating the Differences (ε)

There is no evil without some good (ζ)

* Points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 12 bis, 15, and 16 were crossed out in the manuscript by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

3. The Source of This Double Danger: the 8th XL Plenum{148} and the Collapse of the Commission.

[+ 3 bis buffer?

4. Perhaps the depth and seriousness of the disagreements justify this? At the heart of the divergence lies a theoretical analysis of the theses, and so forth.

7. “Productive Democracy”?

8. “Soviet Trade Unionism”? “Protection of Material and Spiritual Interests”? Advocates?

9. The Party Program and Its Implementation—or Hardening?

10. Intensity versus Equality?

11. “Fusion.” Why remain silent about it?

“Not a single word from Zinoviev or Lenin”?

** See this volume, pp. 204–216. Ed.

13. The “Repudiation” of the Ninth Congress of the RCP

Zinoviev’s “double-dealing.”

Appointment—yes or no?

14. Trotsky’s Orientation, Tempo, and Context

a propagandistic and administrative approach.

15. Should Trade Unions Be the Ones to Resolve Conflicts? A Syndicalist Temptation.

16. Moving Back from Practical, Operational Work to the Theses (wasting time on politics)—the approach and the context

α Theoretical Disagreements

2. Eclecticism or Dialectics?

3. “Productive Democracy.” Formal Democracy vs. the Main Political Line (Thesis 23)… Trotsky, 67, Bukharin

4. Soviet Trade Unionism—or a Misjudgment of “Tempo” and Context?

5. The Party Program and Its Simplification and Degradation by Trotsky. “Protection of Material and Spiritual Interests” and “Funerary Rites.” Bukharin and Trotsky, p. 48.

The Fraction (founded by Trotsky on December 25, 1920), for a brief period (8 fractional attacks).

“Two Tendencies”—arising from the productive role, or from the approach to the masses?

* The text from the word “Fraction” to the word “Dialectics” in the manuscript was crossed out by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

** This phrase in the manuscript was crossed out by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

The Propagandist and Administrator’s Approach

Will Trade Unions Be the Ones to Resolve Conflicts (Thesis 33)?

An example of excessive enthusiasm, of going too far.

* Confer – compare. Ed.

Appointment—yes or no? Trotsky, 25 “Scapegoats.” Trotsky, 25

3. Sketches for the Plan of Sections: “Politics and Economics. Dialectics and Eclecticism” and “Dialectics and Eclecticism. ‘School’ and ‘Apparatus’”

1) The Buffer of Eclecticism

2) Dialectics and Eclecticism

3) The School and the Apparatus

(on both sides)

4) And just as the apparatus is linked to the school

1500 × 5 = 7500 × 5 = 37,500

37.5 vs. 6,000 thousand < 1%{149}

5) Bukharin, January 3rd, in Petrograd

6) Trotsky’s “shaking up”

“The spirit of hostility is on the rise.”

Administrator vs. Propagandist (Trotsky, p. 27)

7) The state—coercion

The party—exclusion

Trade unions—school.

1) A broad-ranging debate

Who was interested?

2) “Fusion”

A dispute over it?

Who initiated it?[51] “Glass”: Two “sides,” not 222—so what’s the point?

When? To whom? In what context?

Formal and dialectical logic α) Comprehensive β) Developmental γ) Human practice, including[52]

Σ = δ) “There is no abstract truth.” “Truth is always concrete.”

From the glass to the trade unions:

the school and the apparatus…

In general? Yes!

In the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat—“the first steps from capitalism to communism” (the RCP program): the apparatus—when will it merge (neither with the trade unions nor with the state)?

Now, however, the school—and as communist training—the school and as an apparatus—the school as an apparatus; the school—as a “school of administrative and technical management of production”—not merely a school on one side, nor simply an apparatus on the other, but a school that encompasses both sides and all aspects.

Even more concretely.

The apparatus? Yes. 1500 × 5 = 7.5; 7.5 × 5 = 37.5 vs. 6000 < 1%

To this apparatus (1%), as an administrator (cf. Trotsky, p. 27)

to the trade unions as a “propagandist.”

The state—coercion. Administration. Including toward trade unionists (the minority, the upper echelons).

The party—exclusion (the upper echelons of a different kind).

Trade unions—masses. School. Propagandist.

Even more concretely.

Thesis 12 in Trotsky’s work

The spirit of hostility is on the rise. The upper echelons? Down with them?

The masses?

α) Correct the Zektren β) Educate and nurture the masses—nothing is more effective than the word, than propaganda.

The bottom line—and ΣΣ—is: do not approach matters as Trotsky does in Thesis 12.

Why as a propagandist, rather than as an administrator?

1) Because, above all, one must first approach things as a propagandist—especially now—toward professional unions squared, toward such topics cubed.

2) State (administrator)—party (exclusion)—trade unions

{School, connection

3) Had Trotsky addressed a different topic:

90 “shaking up”[53]

Even more concretely, Thesis 12.

“They must come forward—to organize production.”

Trotsky on the economic role: Zinoviev “did not utter a single word” (Trotsky, p. 22). Lenin “did not say a single word” (Trotsky, p. 66)[54].

“Substitution of the question” by Zinoviev (Trotsky, p. 25)

Production-oriented propaganda vs. a production-oriented atmosphere (Trotsky, p. 29)

(re-education, and so forth…)

** This phrase was crossed out in the manuscript by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

The approach of the economist

Shlyapnikov

Nogin

Zinoviev and Lenin (bathhouse)

*The text enclosed in curly brackets, along with the words “I have four points,” were crossed out in the manuscript by V. I. Lenin. Ed.

Wasted time (why politically—Trotsky, p. 65—rather than as an engineer? Because Comrade Trotsky took the floor.)

Trotsky dragged the party backward with his political error.

My “hesitations” and the war.

[“Renunciation” of the IX Congress of the RCP(b), Bukharin, p. 46.]

1) Politics and economics

Incorrect

2) Elections?

But elections for whom?

3) The upper and lower strata.

4. Plan for the conclusion

Conclusion (1) The Party Program[55].

(2) Strikingly decisive and equally distributive.

(3) Renunciation of the IX Congress of the RCP

Thesis 9 (?) “We have withdrawn”? Thesis 7.

(4) Do not exaggerate.

(5) No evil without some good.

5. Outline of the pamphlet’s contents

Something like an introduction, p. 1

The party’s danger posed by factional activities, p. 3

Formal democracy and revolutionary expediency, p. 8

The political danger of splits within the labor movement, p. 10

On fundamental disagreements, p. 20

[Production democracy]

Politics and economics, p. 25

[“Fusion”]

Dialectics and eclecticism. The school and the apparatus, p. 38

Conclusion, pp. 56–70

Insert a mocking remark about Preobrazhensky on p. 3 (22. l)

Resolve the Central Committee’s decision of December 24 (?). XII.[56]

Written in January, prior to January 25, 1921.

First published in 1959 in Volume XXXVI of the Lenin Collection.

Printed from the manuscripts.