NOTES ON A. KOLLONTAI'S PAMPHLET "WORKERS' OPPOSITION" "state
wisdom" of our leading authorities, but a historian, impartially assessing the stages of our rule, will note and point out that here already there was a "dangerous deviation" from the class line, a tendency fraught with consequences towards "adaptation," to maneuvering...
[17] ... Your policy, which chooses the resultant force between three social groups of the population, is a very wise policy. But it smells of the old familiar adaptation, opportunism...
[17 — 18] ... The workers' republic, managed by the communists, this "vanguard" of the working class, which, according to Comrade Lenin, "embodied the revolutionary energy of the class," did not deign to think about placing not individual enterprises and branches of industry that incidentally came before the Sovnarkom in particularly favorable conditions, but the masses, the broad masses of workers and working women in at least somewhat humane conditions of existence...
[20 — 21] ... The task of the party in the present crisis is to fearlessly take stock of its mistakes, if any, and to listen to the healthy class call of the broad masses of workers: through the creativity of the ascending class embodied in the production unions, to the recreation and development of the productive forces of the country, to the cleansing of the party itself from elements that have infiltrated it, to the correction of the work of the party, through a return to democratization, to freedom of opinion and criticism within the party...
[21] ... It is also natural that there is no such communist who has remained aloof from the discussion on the role of trade unions. As a result of 6 different groupings...

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[25] ... This is how she (the Workers' Opposition. Ed.) understands the tasks of the trade unions. From this one of the most important points of her theses:
"The organization of the management of the national economy belongs to the all-Russian congress of producers, united in professional and industrial unions, which elect a central body managing the entire national economy of the Republic" (theses of the Workers' Opposition)...
... Distrust of the working class (of course, not in the political sphere, but in the sphere of the class's economic-creative abilities) is the essence of the theses signed by our leading authorities. The top of the party does not believe that the rough hands of technically poorly trained workers will create the basic outlines, contours of economic forms, from which, over time, a coherent system of communist production will develop...
[27] ... Trotsky himself seems to understand the tasks of the unions differently; in his opinion, the main work of the unions is the organization of production. In this, he is profoundly right...
The "creativity" of the class has been missed. Comrade Trotsky substitutes it with the fact that the "actual organizers of production" within the union are the "leading communists" in the unions...

COLLECTION
[33] ... The Workers' Opposition is not so ignorant as to ignore the great role of technology and technically trained forces. It does not at all envisage creating its own organ for managing the national economy, elected at a producers' congress, and then dissolving the VSNKh, chief administrations, and centers. No, it envisions something else: subordinating these necessary, technically valuable centers of management to its leadership, giving them theoretical directives, using them as, in their time, factory owners and plant managers used the hired labor of specialist technicians to implement their planned and conceived plans...
[36] ... The leading economic organ in the Workers' Republic, at this transitional moment, should be an organ elected by the producer-workers...
... Only the Workers' Opposition must not and cannot make concessions. This does not mean calling for a "split." No, its task is different. Even in the event of defeat at the congress, it must remain within the party and step by step firmly defend its point of view, saving the party and correcting its line...
[37] ... The question of bureaucratism was raised, but it was extremely superficially discussed at the Nth Congress. The debate on this point is deeper than it seems. The essence of it is: which system of management of the workers' state, at the moment of building the economic base of communism, provides greater scope for class creativity—the system of bureaucratic state organs, or the system of broad practical self-activity of the working masses?..
[38] ... Bureaucratism is a scourge that has seeped into the very depths of our party and is eating away at our Soviet organs, which is noted not only by the Workers' Opposition, but is also recognized by many more thoughtful comrades standing behind the ranks of this group...
Anti-party pamphlet by A. Kollontai "Workers' Opposition" M. 1921, published in manuscript form on the eve of the Tenth Congress, with the inscription: "For members of the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. [Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)].
493
RECORD OF DEBATES ON THE POLITICAL REPORT
OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. — 9/II [1921]
In lines: There is no violation of unity, no syndicalism, in Petrograd and "workers' opposition," but... uprising...
P.G.K.D.A.I. SUDU TS.Y.R.[U].P.A.
and fuel? [Not workers' opposition]
Ananessian would bring to trial representatives of foreign missions...
RECORD OF DEBATES ON THE POLITICAL REPORT OF THE CC
Osinsky:
unity is broken... many groups and etc. "bulls"
Sapronov!!
words again do not match deeds (friendly versus kicked out)
... 2 from the workers' opposition in the presidium...
Sosnovsky:
... we are entering a period of capitulation to the petty bourgeoisie...
Milopov: (Samara) for Kollontai. "administratively" labeled it syndicalism.
Ryazanov... the guilt of the CC = nurtured the workers' opposition.
Perpechko... pitiful attempts by the CC to fight bureaucratism
Kollontai:
"The report satisfied few"... where is the essence and what measures? (avoided Kronstadt, etc.)
Did not carry out "cleansing of the party from foreign elements"?
What did the CC do to create conditions for self-activity? [Are there circulars?]
Shlyapnikov N 2
Kollontai: (About Tsuryupa)
(1)

(2) p. 181 (3) 33 (4) 36
1 In the evening session on March 8, 1921, the debates on the political report of the CC began, occupying part of the morning session on March 9. Lenin's record of the debates started with the second speaker—A. Shlyapnikov, completely omitting in his notes those who spoke in this session: I. Skvortsov, S. Minin, M. Rafal, and E. Yaroslavsky, apparently not intending to dwell on their speeches in his concluding remarks.
The political report of the CC and the concluding remarks on the report at the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P., see Collected Works, Vol. XXVI, pp. 202—220, 221—233; debates see "The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.," stenographic report, GIZ, 1921, pp. 37—60.
* Shlyapnikov demagogically demanded that the People's Commissar for Food, A. Tsuryupa, be brought to trial, as food products were rotting in the People's Commissariat for Food. Lenin sharply reprimanded Shlyapnikov (see Collected Works, Vol. XXVI, 232—233).
* This refers to the bringing to trial by V. A. Avesyan of foreign representatives, who, according to Shlyapnikov, instead of purchasing production equipment, bought unnecessary items abroad.
4 Further follow the page markings of A. Kollontai's pamphlet "Workers' Opposition." Lenin also cited the first page, which is not indicated in the record, and the order of the intended citations changed during the speech (see Collected Works, Vol. XXVI, pp. 226—229).
* "versus" is written in between the words "friendly" and "kicked out." Ed.