Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/87

 We could still mention many industries where, under very diverse forms and in a varied degree, the workmen have obtained the right to choose their colleagues, but we must admit that the experience has, to a certain extent, been successful only when this right was given to a trade union; for in this case it is exercised, not under the control of the workmen of a single factory, but under the direction of the whole profession, represented by a powerful association, which has its traditions and its prestige to safeguard, and which would compromise the future of the work did it force the employment of incapable or lazy workmen. Here we would only draw attention to the great difference with regard to responsibility between the intervention of a trade union and the intervention of the working staff of the factory. We shall have occasion to refer to this again in the following pages.

Russian workmen have tried for a long time to organize themselves industrially. They have had before them the example