Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/49



It is three years since the rise of the Russian trade unions (on the eve of the March Revolution there were three trade unions with a general membership of 1,385). The youthfulness of our unions is reflected in the inadequate connection of the centre with the localities, in the absence of exact information and statistics, in the weakness of the apparatus, in the slowness in assuming command of the tremendous mechanism of production, the small successes in the standardisation of labour, in the impossibility of carrying out completely the intended system of the State regulation of wages and finally, in the temporary increase of unions of small undertakings which are difficult to control. All of us see this dark side of our trade union movement. We are far from thinking that the Russian trade union movement can in all respects serve as an example for the trade unions of other countries; but we would be sinning against historic truth if we did not lay stress on the tact that the Russian Trade Unions, in spite of a number of deficiencies, are yet in many respects exemplary;! for they have one very great virtue: they are the child and the creature of the Revolution. The victory of the Revolution was the victory of the trade unions; the defeat of the Revolution was a defeat for trade unions. This organic connection of the unions with the Revolution gives us the key to the understanding of the reason of the weakness of the trade unions and the difficulties of the problems that confront us.

The long years of the civil war in which the proletariat played the leading part, the blockade and the economic disorganisation arising therefrom, the repeated mobilisation of trade unionists reaching 50 per cent. of the membership in some towns and despatching to the front in moments of danger—and these moments occurred often—of hundreds of active workers in the trade union movement, could not but reflect itself on our trade union organisation. The trade unions accurately reflect the degrees of organisation of national economy. The ill-health of the national economic organism is also the ill-health of the trade unions and vice versa. And so, in the period of collapse, the old productive relations of the trade unions in Russia play a large organising role. There is not a branch of State activity (military, food, sanitary, economic, technical, cultural, etc.) in which the Russian trade unions are not engaged. There is not an important act of legislation in the discussion of which the Russian trade unions have not taken part. Revolutionary activity, whole-hearted loyalty to the cause of the social revolution, the clear and firm position in the struggle with the bourgeoisie, the stern and ruthless hostility to the very idea of the co-operation of classes, the fearless destruction of old relations and fetishes are things which the Russian trade unions may teach the workers of other countries.

That the Russian trade unions have shown that they are revolutionary not only in the struggle with the bourgeoisie but also in the struggle against the prejudices in labour organisation was proved by the radical revision of the question pf strikes after the October Revolution. Now we have another