THE TRADE UNIONS, THE PRESENT SITUATION AND TROTSKY’S MISTAKES -2
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
Lenin
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 bodieswhich, 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
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.
Bureaucratic 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 organisation for production agitation and propaganda.
11. The economic departments of the trade unions and o 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 distributive bodies of the Commissariat for Food, both local and central,
taking a practical and business-like part and exercising control 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 work 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 effectively. 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 is 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.)
V. I; Lenin, Collected Works,
Vol. 32, pp. 19-42
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