Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/26

 class war, (3) what should the workers support—bourgeois democracy or labour democracy, i.e., the Constituent Assembly or the Soviets and, finally, what were the practical problems confronting the labour unions in the period of proletarian dictatorship.

The First Trade Union Congress held the view that the victory of the workers and the poorest peasants in October "leads us simultaneously towards the beginning of international socialist revolution and to the victory, over the capitalist system of production." Everything else follows from this fundamental view of the character of the October Revolution.

"The idea of 'neutrality' of the trade unions"—says this resolution—"was and remains a bourgeois idea. There is and there can be no neutrality in the great historical fight between revolutionary socialism and its opponents. Support of bourgeois policy and betrayal of the interests of the working class was always concealed beneath the mask of neutrality. Least of all in Russia, a country going through a great, revolution and which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, could the trade unions be 'neutral.' All the questions arising in the process of the revolution (Constituent Assembly, nationalisation of Banks, the fight against the bourgeois press, the repudiation of loans, etc.), directly affects the interests of the trade union movement. In all these questions the trade unions must give their entire support to the policy of the Socialist Soviet Government, as conducted by the Council of Peoples Commissaries."

By this resolution the Congress, in the name of two and a half million workers, firmly and undeviatingly stood for the soviet system, for labour democracy as against bourgeois democracy, and thus linked the fate of the trade union movement in Russia with the fate of the soviet government and the socialist revolution. Expressing itself in favour of the dictatorship of the proletariat and for "the close co-operation and inseparable connection between the trade unions and the proletarian political organisations and, chiefly with the Soviet of Workers' Delegates" the first conference resolved that "the centre of gravity of the trade union movement at the present moment must be transferred to the sphere of national administration and organisation. The Trade Unions must undertake the work of organising production and restoring the undermined forces of the country." How did the Unions carry out this resolution? By the creation of special economic organs in conjunction with the Soviet, organisation of workers' control, estimation and distribution of labour power, participation in the transference of war industry to peace production, by fighting against sabotage, by the introduction or obligatory labour, etc. The problems submitted by the Congress to the Trade Unions of Russia were—organisation of labour and organisation of production.

The First Congress paid particular and detailed attention to the question of workers' control and the regulation of