Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/11

 trade unions were organised with 220 members. In Vilna 12 funds were established. Altogether in Vilna there were 850 organised workers belonging to 27 trades and in Minsk 870 workers belonging to 15 trades. These strike funds played such an important part in the development of the Labour movement that when in 1897 the Jewish Labour League of Lithuania, Poland and Russia (the Bund) was established, these strike funds were its foundation stone. The part played by these organisations can be seen from the following figures: in 1900 of the total number of local Jewish workers in Bielostock 20 per cent. were organised in these societies, in Vilna, 24 per cent., in Gomel nearly 40 per cent. and in Minsk 35–40 per cent.

In the nineties unions for fighting for the emancipation of the working class arose in Central Russia and illegally, conducted strikes and assisted strikers. In several Petrograd factories illegal fighting funds were established of which one fourth of the members' contributions were devoted to strikes, a half for mutual aid and the rest for books. In 1895 a Labour Union was established in Ivanovo-Voznesensk which established funds and a library. In 1897 a Central Fund was set up in Nikolaeff, half of the income of which was devoted for strike purposes. All these strike funds and labour unions were created by the Social-Democrats who, in this manner, stood, so to speak, at the cradle of the trade union movement in Russia. These illegal fighting funds and strike funds undoubtedly were embryonic forms of trade unions. In 1898 all unions for the emancipation of the working class united into a single Social-Democratic Labour Party which in Central Russia relied upon illegal groups and organisations and in Poland and the Western provinces on the illegal purely party trade unions. The Russian trade union movement from the moment of its birth bound itself up with the political labour movement. This particular feature of the Russian labour movement manifests itself up to the present moment.

The accentuation of the economic struggle which took the form of political demonstrations against the autocracy suggested the idea in police circles of creating legal labour organisations for the purpose of combatting the harmful influence of the Social-Democrats. The Chief of the Moscow Police, Trepoff, and the Chief of the Moscow "Okrana" ZubatofT were engaged on this question. Trepoff, in one of his reports, states that "success in the struggle rouses a confidence in their strength, teaches them to adopt practical methods of fighting, trains and brings to the front able leaders, convinces the workers of the possibility and the utility of collective action and develops a consciousness for the necessity of the class struggle" and urges the necessity for creating an antidote to the political influence of the Social-Democrats. In Moscow, in 1902, a mechanic society was organised under the direct leadership and protection of the Okrana. In Minsk the Chief of the Police, Vassilev, and in Odessa, Shaevitch, set up similar well intentioned organisations. All the efforts of the Okrana were directed towards concentrating the attention of the working class upon mutual