Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/14

 the authorities. The conference carried a number of resolutions in connection with the pressing questions of that day and again decided that the practical task of the moment was a convocation of a national conference of trade unions. It worked out the standing orders of such a conference, the agenda, and elected an organisation committee for convening a national conference. The organisation bureau was elected to serve as a national centre until the meeting of the conference and it was the function of this bureau not only to maintain connection with trade unions in Russia, but also to establish connection with the European trade unions. In defining the character of organisations which would be eligible for representation at the national conference, the conference declared that only those societies would be permitted which stood on the tactics of the "modern labour movement." One can hardly regard this formula as sufficiently clear, nor yet the statement of the conference that the "trade unions are the most perfect form of organisation for conducting the struggle of the wage workers organised by trades against the capitalists for the improvement of the conditions of labour," as complete. This caution and vagueness in the formulas are the consequence, on the one hand, of the police conditions and the impossibility of speaking out, and, on the other hand, the undoubtedly great influence of the moderate wing of the Russian social democracy, an influence which was inversely proportional to the progress of the revolution.

From the defeat of the first revolution to the revolution of 1917 the trade union movement, as a mass labour movement, did not exist in Russia. The tsarist government conducted a policy of ruthless extermination of the trade unions. The unions were prohibited from assisting strikers; they were closed down for attempting to intervene in the great strike movement, members of the executives were arrested and exiled to Siberia, funds were confiscated and books taken to the police stations; police were present at all meetings which were closed. down on the slightest pretext, and, very often, without any reason at all. The trade unions were considered dangerous enough for the department of police to issue special circulars and instructions on the way to fight sedition. The iron fist of the victorious, reaction ruthlessly crushed the labour organisations at their birth.

According to the statistics of the Police Department, 104 trade unions were closed down in 1907. The reasons for closing down these unions, as formulated by the Police Department, were: violation of rules, participation of non-members of the union in the management of the union, participation in strikes, attacking employers in the press for dismissing a union member, a boycott by a union branch against a firm and an employee taken on by that firm to replace a dismissed member of the union, a boycott by means of the press against a shopkeeper who refused to employ union men, threatening to boycott an employer and his non-union employees, advocating strikes, activity likely to become a public danger, political unreliability of certain members of the society, participation of members of