Page:Grigory Zinoviev - The Communist Party and Industrial Unionism.djvu/10

 fending the Power of the Soviets and the World Revolution.

The modern Industrial Unions are doing an enormous work, and they greatly facilitate the struggle for Socialism made by the Communist Party and the Soviets. But, at the same time, there is, during our transition, a dark side to the activity of the Industrial Unions. For example, some branches of the Dock Labourers' Union on the Volga support the wage demands of their short-sighted individual members. (without even having helped the Soviets in their fight against the incredible thefts which have been committed by the dockyard workers); they prove that they are very much behind the times, and that they are incapable of rising above the narrow interests of their group. When certain associations of clerks and other similar commercial associations introduce people into the Soviet institutions, who are not fit to do the work which is entrusted to them, and when, these associations take up the demands of their members, forgetting that they no longer have to deal with employers, but with the Proletarian State, they also prove their Trade Union narrowness. The fight against the negative parties of the working-class movement is one of the chief duties of the Communists in the Industrial Unions.

At a time when the best elements in French Syndicalism are abandoning their former errors, and moving towards Communism in laying down the principle: "All power to the Workers' Councils," there are working-class groups and circles in Russia which are trying to revive the worst features