Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/124

 98 unions in the management of industry, but is dead against the syndicalist conception of the Metal Workers' Union. Their chief demand is for the re-establishment of the Soviet Constitution.

The official Lenin resolution received 336 votes at the conference, Trotzky's resolution 50, and that of the Labor Opposition 18.

What was the result of this conference? Far from bringing any relaxation of the Communist dictatorship it resulted in putting at the head of the railroads the one man in Russia who is noted as more violent than Trotzky himself, namely, Lenin's right arm, Djerjinsky, chief of the frightful Extraordinary Commission. Such is labor reform and "democratization" in Soviet Russia! As we read in a dispatch of April 19, 1920:

President Djerjinsky of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission of the People's Commissary of the Interior, who is also Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Improvement of Conditions of Life of the Workers, Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Care of Children and of several other extraordinary commissions, has been appointed People's Commissary of Transport and Communications. The present Commissary, M. Emshanoff, becomes Under Secretary.

The decree of the Central Executive Committee explicitly announces that Djerjinsky will maintain all his other positions, thus becoming still more powerful. During the recent animated discussion of the position of the trade unions, Trotzky was severely criticized for introducing military methods into the management of the railways. Trotzky was obliged to retire as Commissary of Transport and Emshanoff returned to the normal methods of management only to give way in a