ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
The Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP, held on December 28, 1921, addressed the question of the role and tasks of trade unions in light of the New Economic Policy. Reports were delivered by Comrades Rudzutak, Andreev, and Shlyapnikov (the draft report by Comrade Lutovinov was not heard, owing solely to the fact that it had not been possible to summon the rapporteur in time). Following an exchange of views, it was decided to submit the initial drafts of the thesis statements prepared by Comrades Rudzutak and Andreev to a commission composed of these two comrades, with the addition of Comrade Lenin, and to entrust this commission with the task of elaborating a draft of thesis statements to be submitted for approval to the Politburo.
(A few additional lines will be added after the draft is approved by the commission and subsequently by the Politburo.)
DRAFT
1. THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY AND TRADE UNIONS
The New Economic Policy introduces a number of fundamental changes in the position of the proletariat—and, by extension, in the position of trade unions. These changes arise from the fact that, in its overall policy of transitioning from capitalism to socialism, the Communist Party and the Soviet government are now employing distinct methods of this transition, acting in a wide range of spheres in ways different from those previously employed, seizing certain positions—so to speak, through “new maneuvers”—and making strategic retreats in order to emerge better prepared to launch renewed offensives against capitalism. In particular, free trade and elements of capitalism are now permitted and encouraged, subject to state regulation; at the same time, state enterprises are being brought under so‑called economic accounting—that is, in essence, increasingly oriented toward commercial and capitalist principles.
2. STATE CAPITALISM IN THE PROLETARIAN STATE AND TRADE UNIONS
The proletarian state, without altering its essential nature, may permit freedom of trade and the development of capitalism only to a certain extent—and only on the condition of state regulation (supervision, control, specification of forms, procedures, and the like) over private trade and privately owned capitalist enterprises. The success of such regulation depends not only on the state authorities but, even more so, on the degree of maturity of the proletariat and of the working masses as a whole, as well as on the level of cultural development and other factors. Yet even in the event of complete success in this regulatory endeavor, the fundamental antagonism between the class interests of labor and capital remains absolute. Accordingly, one of the most crucial tasks facing trade unions from this point forward is the comprehensive, all‑round defense of the class interests of the proletariat in its struggle against capital. This task must be placed squarely among the foremost priorities; the apparatus of trade unions must be reorganized, reshaped, or supplemented accordingly; strike funds must be established—or, more accurately, must continue to be established—and much more besides.
3. STATE ENTERPRISES TRANSFERRED TO SO‑CALLED ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING,
AND TRADE UNIONS
The transfer of state enterprises to so‑called economic accounting is inextricably linked to the New Economic Policy, and in the near future—

PROJECT OF THESIS STATEMENTS ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
this type will inevitably become predominant—if not outright exclusive. In practice, this means that, in an environment characterized by permitted and expanding freedom of trade, state enterprises are being shifted, to a significant degree, onto commercial, capitalist foundations. Given the pressing need to increase labor productivity, to achieve profitability and financial soundness in every state enterprise, and given the inevitable tendency toward departmental self‑interest and the exaggeration of departmental zeal, this circumstance will inevitably give rise to a certain conflict of interests between the working masses and the directors and managers of state enterprises—or of the departments to which they belong. Consequently, with regard to state enterprises as well, trade unions bear an unshirkable responsibility to defend the class interests of the proletariat and the working masses against their employers.
4. THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CLASS STRUGGLE OF THE PROLETARIAT IN A STATE THAT RECOGNIZES PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND, FACTORIES, AND THE LIKE, AND WHICH IS GOVERNED BY A POLITICAL POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS, AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE OF THE PROLETARIAT IN A STATE THAT DOES NOT RECOGNIZE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND OR MOST LARGE ENTERPRISES, A STATE IN WHICH POLITICAL POWER RESTS IN THE HANDS OF THE PROLETARIAT
As long as classes exist, class struggle is inevitable. During the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, the existence of classes is likewise unavoidable—and the program of the RCP states with utter clarity that we are taking only the first steps in the transition from capitalism to socialism. Therefore, both the Communist Party and the Soviet government, as well as the trade unions, must openly acknowledge the existence of class struggle and its inevitability—until, at least in principle, the electrification of industry and agriculture has been completed, until all roots of petty proprietorship and the dominance of the market have been cut away. From this it follows that, at the present moment, we cannot…

In this way, we cannot abandon the struggle of strikes; we cannot, in principle, accept a law that would replace strikes with compulsory state mediation. On the other hand, it is clear that under capitalism, the ultimate goal of the strike movement is to dismantle the state apparatus and overthrow the existing class-based state power. But in a transitional proletarian state—such as ours—the ultimate aim of the strike movement can be nothing less than the consolidation of the proletarian state and proletarian class-based state power, achieved through the struggle against the bureaucratic distortions of that state, against its errors and weaknesses, against the class interests of the capitalists that break free from the state’s control, and so on. Therefore, neither the Communist Party nor the Soviet Power, nor the trade unions, may in any way forget—or conceal from the working class and the laboring masses—that the use of the strike movement within a state governed by proletarian state power can be explained and justified solely by the bureaucratic distortions of the proletarian state and by the various remnants of capitalist antiquity still lingering in its institutions, on the one hand, and by the political underdevelopment and cultural backwardness of the laboring masses, on the other. For if courts and all other state organs are established on a class basis, created by the workers themselves—with the exclusion of the bourgeoisie from the electorate—then the normal means of resolving conflicts between labor and capital, between employees and employers, must increasingly become the direct recourse of workers to state organs.
5. RETURNING TO VOLUNTARY TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP
The compulsory enrollment of every single worker into the trade unions proved to be inconsistent both with the actual stage of industrial socialization that had been attained and with the level of development reached by the masses. Moreover, compulsory membership introduced a certain degree of bureaucratic distortion into the trade unions as well. The lack of…

DRAFT THESIS ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
We must, with the utmost determination, return—for a rather extended period—to voluntary trade union membership. Members of the trade unions should in no way be required to hold specific political views; in this respect—as in the question of attitudes toward religion—trade unions must remain nonpartisan. In the proletarian state, trade union members should be required only to understand the principles of comradeship and discipline, to recognize the necessity of uniting working forces in order to defend the interests of the laboring masses, and to demonstrate loyalty to the power of the workers—that is, to the Soviet Power. The proletarian state must encourage the formation of workers’ trade associations both legally and materially. Yet trade unions must not enjoy any rights without corresponding duties.
6. TRADE UNIONS AND ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT
After the proletariat has seized state power, its most fundamental and most essential interest lies in increasing the quantity of products and vastly expanding society’s productive forces. This task—clearly articulated in the program of the RCP—is now particularly acute for us, given the devastation, famine, and ruin that have followed the war. Consequently, the swiftest and most enduring success in restoring large-scale industry is a condition without which the success of the entire endeavor to liberate labor from the yoke of capital becomes unthinkable—and the victory of socialism, likewise, is inconceivable. And such success, in turn, absolutely requires, in the current Russian context, the concentration of all power in the hands of factory management. These administrations, generally organized according to the principle of sole leadership, must independently determine wage levels and allocate monetary funds, food rations, work clothing, and all other forms of supply—with maximum freedom of maneuver, under the strictest scrutiny of actual progress in boosting production and ensuring profitability and sound financial performance, while rigorously selecting the most outstanding and capable administrators, and so forth.

Under these conditions, any direct intervention by trade unions in enterprise management must be recognized as unequivocally harmful and unacceptable.
Yet it would be utterly misguided to interpret this incontrovertible truth as a denial of trade unions’ participation in the socialist organization of industry and in the management of state-owned enterprises. Such participation is necessary—in precisely defined forms, namely the following:
7. THE ROLE AND PARTICIPATION OF TRADE UNIONS IN ECONOMIC AND STATE ORGANS OF THE PROLETARIAN STATE
The proletariat constitutes the class foundation of the state undergoing the transition from capitalism to socialism. The proletariat can successfully fulfill this task in a country where small-scale peasant farming predominates overwhelmingly only on the condition of extremely skillful, cautious, and gradual cooperation with the vast majority of the peasantry. Trade unions must be the closest and indispensable collaborators of the state power, which is guided in all its political and economic endeavors by the conscious vanguard of the working class—the Communist Party. As schools of communism in general, trade unions must, in particular, serve as schools of socialist industrial management (and later, gradually, of agriculture) for the entire mass of workers—and then for all laboring people.
Based on these fundamental principles, the following basic forms of trade union participation in the economic and state organs of the proletarian state should be established:
(1) Trade unions participate in the formation of all economic and state organs concerned with the economy, nominating candidates and exercising their advisory vote; trade unions also participate in these organs—but not directly, rather through members of higher state institutions and economic councils whom they nominate and who are approved by the Communist Party and the Soviet Power.

PROJECT OF THESES ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
new plant management bodies (where such collegial decision-making has been instituted), administrators, their assistants, and so on.
(2) One of the most crucial tasks of trade unions is to identify and train administrators from among the working class and the laboring masses at large. While we now have dozens of industrial administrators who are entirely satisfactory—and hundreds who are more or less adequate—within the near future we will need hundreds of the former and thousands of the latter. Trade unions must undertake the systematic identification of all workers and peasants capable of performing such work, coupled with thorough, impartial, and practical assessments of their progress in learning how to manage—and they must pursue this task far more rigorously and persistently than they do today.
(3) No less important is the participation of trade unions in all planning bodies of the proletarian state. Alongside their involvement in all cultural and educational activities and in production-oriented propaganda, this kind of union activity must increasingly and more deeply draw the working class and the laboring masses into every aspect of state economic construction, familiarizing them with the full spectrum of economic life, with the entire range of industrial operations—from raw material procurement to product realization—and providing them with an ever-more concrete understanding both of the unified state plan for socialist economy and of the practical stakes involved for workers and peasants in bringing that plan to fruition.
(4) The formulation of wage scales, supply norms, and the like constitutes one of the indispensable components of trade union work in the building of socialism and in their participation in industrial management. In particular, trade unions must steadfastly reinforce labor discipline and cultivate the cultural forms of struggle for labor rights and for increased productivity—without, however, interfering in the functions of people’s courts in general or in the functions of administrative bodies.

This list of the principal functions of trade unions in the construction of a socialist economy must, of course, be elaborated in detail by the appropriate trade union bodies and by the Soviet authorities. What matters most is that trade unions consciously and resolutely move away from the harmful practice of direct, unprepared, incompetent, and irresponsible intervention in management—and instead engage in persistent, practical, long-term efforts to educate workers and all laboring people in the art of managing the national economy as a whole.
8. CONNECTION WITH THE MASS AS THE PRIMARY CONDITION FOR ALL TRADE UNION WORK
Connection with the mass—that is, with the vast majority of workers (and subsequently, with all laboring people—is the most important, the most fundamental condition for the success of any trade union activity. From the grassroots up through the highest levels of trade union organization and its apparatus, a comprehensive system of responsible comrades must be established and tested over many years of practical experience—comrades who are not only, but above all, drawn from among the ranks of communists, who must live in the thick of working-class life, know it inside and out, and be able to accurately discern, at any given moment and in response to any issue, the true needs, aspirations, and thoughts of the masses; who can assess, without the slightest trace of false idealization, the degree of consciousness within those masses and the extent to which various prejudices and vestiges of the past still exert their influence; who can win the boundless trust of the masses through fraternal relations and through attentive, caring fulfillment of their needs. Among the greatest and most formidable dangers facing the relatively small Communist Party—which, as the vanguard of the working class, leads a vast country undergoing (for now, without the direct support of more advanced nations) the transition to socialism—is the danger of becoming detached from the masses, the risk that the vanguard may surge too far ahead, failing to “level the front” and maintain a firm connection with the entire army of labor—that is, with the vast—

PROJECT OF THESES ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
majority of the working and peasant masses. Just as even the finest factory, equipped with a superb engine and first-rate machinery, will come to a standstill if the transmission mechanism between engine and machines becomes damaged, so too is the collapse of our socialist construction inevitable if the transmission mechanism linking the Communist Party to the masses—namely, the trade unions—is improperly constructed or fails to function as it should. This truth cannot be merely explained, reiterated, or confirmed; it must be institutionally enshrined throughout the entire structure of trade unions and in their day-to-day operations.
9. CONTRADICTIONS IN THE VERY POSITION OF TRADE UNIONS UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
From all that has been set forth above, a number of contradictions emerge between the various tasks of trade unions. On the one hand, their primary method of action is persuasion and education; on the other, as participants in state power, they cannot afford to renounce the use of coercion. On the one hand, their chief task is to safeguard the interests of the laboring masses in the most immediate and pressing sense of the word; on the other, as participants in state power and builders of the national economy as a whole, they cannot abandon the use of pressure. On the one hand, they must operate in a manner akin to warfare, for the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fiercest, most tenacious, and most desperate class war; on the other, the specifically military methods of work are least suited to trade unions. On the one hand, they must be able to adapt to the masses, to the level at which they currently find themselves; on the other, they must never yield to the prejudices and backwardness of the masses, but rather steadily raise their level to ever higher heights. And so on, and so forth.
These contradictions are neither accidental nor easily resolved over the course of several decades. For, first and foremost, they are inherent to every school of thought—and trade unions are, in essence, a school of communism. Before several decades have passed, we cannot expect that…

Most working people have attained the highest level of development, one that casts off all traces and memories of the “school” for adults. Secondly, as long as remnants of capitalism and small-scale production persist, contradictions are bound to arise throughout the entire social order—contradictions between these vestiges and the nascent seeds of socialism.
The practical conclusions drawn from this are twofold. First: for trade unions to function successfully, it is not enough merely to grasp their tasks correctly; nor is it sufficient to structure them properly. What is also required is a special kind of tact—a keen ability to approach the masses in a distinctive way in each individual, concrete case, thereby guiding them, with minimal friction, up one more rung on the ladder of cultural, economic, and political advancement.
The second conclusion is that these contradictions will inevitably give rise to conflicts, inconsistencies, frictions, and the like. There must be a higher authority—sufficiently authoritative—to resolve such issues without delay. Such an authority is the Communist Party, together with the international association of Communist Parties from all countries—the Comintern.
10. TRADE UNIONS AND SPECIALISTS
The fundamental principles governing this question are set forth in the program of the RCP. Yet these principles will remain mere paper unless we once again turn our attention to the facts that reveal the extent to which they are being put into practice. Among the most recent such facts are, first, instances of workers murdering engineers at nationalized mines—not only in the Urals but also in the Donbas—and, second, the suicide of V. V. Oldenburger*, chief engineer of the Moscow Water Supply System.
Of course, the blame for such occurrences rests far more heavily upon the Communist Party and the Soviet government as a whole than upon the trade unions themselves. But what matters now is not the determination of political culpability, but rather the drawing of certain political conclusions. If all our leading

* Here is the relevant report from Pravda dated January 3, 1922: ((quote the full text of this report from the Chronicle, on page 4)) 143.

DRAFT THESIS ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
If institutions—namely, the Communist Party, the Soviet government, and the trade unions—fail to ensure that we cherish every specialist who works conscientiously, with deep knowledge of their craft and genuine love for their work—even if ideologically completely alien to communism—then there can be no talk of any serious progress in the cause of socialist construction. We may not achieve this goal anytime soon, but we must strive at all costs to ensure that specialists—as a distinct social stratum that will remain a separate layer until the very highest stage of development in communist society—live under socialism better than they did under capitalism—in terms of both material conditions and legal rights; in terms of fraternal cooperation with workers and peasants; and in terms of ideological fulfillment—that is, in terms of deriving satisfaction from their work and recognizing its social utility while remaining independent of the self‑interested pursuits of the capitalist class. No one would deem it remotely acceptable to operate a department that does not systematically pursue, and yield tangible results from, comprehensive efforts to support specialists, to reward the best among them, to safeguard and protect their interests, and so forth. Trade unions must carry out all such tasks—or systematically participate in the corresponding work of all relevant departments—not from the standpoint of the interests of any single department, but from the standpoint of the interests of labor and of the national economy as a whole. When it comes to specialists, trade unions bear the heaviest and most arduous responsibility for exerting daily influence over the broadest layers of working people, in order to foster proper relationships between workers and specialists—and only such work is capable of yielding truly significant practical results.
11. TRADE UNIONS AND PETTY-BOURGEOIS INFLUENCES ON THE WORKING CLASS
Trade unions are truly effective only when they unite the widest possible strata of non‑party workers. From this it follows, especially in a country where the peasantry constitutes an overwhelming majority, that the political influences which form the superstructure above the remnants of capitalism and small-scale production tend to find particular stability within the trade union movement. These are petty-bourgeois influences—on the one hand, Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik tendencies (the Russian variant of the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals), and on the other, anarchist currents. It is precisely within these movements that a still-significant number of individuals remain who defend capitalism not out of self‑interest or class-based motives, but ideologically—continuing to believe in the non‑class-based significance of the “democracy,” “equality,” and “freedom” they preach in general.
It is precisely this socio‑economic factor—not the role of individual groups, much less individual persons—that should be held responsible for the remnants (and, on occasion, the resurgence) of such petty‑bourgeois ideas observed among trade unions in our midst. Accordingly, the Communist Party, the cultural and educational organizations engaged in enlightenment work, and all Communists active within the trade unions must devote far greater attention to the ideological struggle against petty‑bourgeois influences, trends, and deviations within the trade union movement—especially since the New Economic Policy cannot fail to lead to a certain resurgence of capitalism. In response to this, it is urgently necessary to intensify the struggle against petty‑bourgeois influences on the working class.
End
Let us discuss these theses together.
This should be forwarded to Comrade Molotov, without rewriting it.
With this, the theses intended for publication come to an end—that is, the draft of these theses, submitted to the Commission and then to the Politburo.
By a special resolution of the Politburo, I propose that the following resolution be adopted, based on the draft submitted by Comrade Rudzutak, in the following wording:

DRAFT THESIS ON THE ROLE AND TASKS OF TRADE UNIONS
The Politburo instructs the Organizational Bureau to establish, within the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee, a special commission tasked with reviewing and rejuvenating the leadership ranks—and, where possible, all party workers—of the trade union movement, with a view to intensifying the struggle against petty‑bourgeois, Socialist-Revolutionary–Menshevik, and anarchist influences and tendencies. This commission should complete its work—though at least in large part—by the time of the Eleventh Congress of the RCP and present a report on its activities to the Party Congress. 144.
Not to be published
January 4, 1922. Lenin
Written December 30, 1921 – January 4, 1922.
Printed—with some changes—on January 17, 1922, in Pravda, No. 12.

Printed from the manuscript.