Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/70

 unions in industrial centres. At the beginning of 1907 there were in the whole of Russia 81 unions of workers working in metals and machine construction, with a total membership of 54,173. These unions were not constructed on a strictly industrial principle. In many localities the unions were narrow craft organisations of moulders, turners, smiths, etc.

New growths of the trade union movement among metal workers became evident in Petersburg during 1912 and 1914. This period, in which the metal workers marched hand in hand with the left wing of the social democrats, is important for the fact that it witnessed the development of groups of active workers in our movement who played an important part in the creation of our union after the revolution of February, 1917.

The war involved the practical dissolution of the scattered metal workers' organisations, so that the metal workers entered the epoch of our great revolution with hardly any trade union organisation. The most powerful weapon of their organisation was that highly developed class consciousness which they were able to forge in the process of the revolutionary struggle.

The Revolution of February, 1917, gave a tremendous impetus to the development of trade union organisations among the metal workers. At the third All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions which took place 20th–28th June, 1917, 400,000 workers organised in metal workers' unions were represented. At that time also a conference of metal workers' delegates was held at which a Provisional Executive Committee of the All-Russia Metal Workers' Union was elected and in this manner the foundation of our national organisation was laid down.

The first inaugural conference of the union took place in Petrograd in January, 1918, at which more than 600,000 workers were represented. This Conference laid down the rules of the All-Russian Union and elected a Central Committee. The organisation was constructed on a democratic centralism in the sphere of management of all the unions' activities, responsibility to constituents, and subordination to the higher organs of the unions. This same conference outlined the functions of the union in the period when the proletariat has taken power; of this we shall speak later.

The ensuing year was not favourable for organising work. The German imperialist offensive and the counter-revolution which took place with the assistance of the latter in the Ukraine and the Don Basin, as well as the Russian counter-revolutionary offensive from Siberia backed by the Czecho-Slovak troops and the Entente, drew all the attention of our union to the defence of the fundamental gains of the revolution. The Ural and the Don Basin were cut off from Central Russia, the metal industry in Petrograd was reduced to a considerable extent, as a consequence of its being dismantled and evacuated to other districts.

All this explains the fact that at our second conference which took place in January, 1919, only 400,000 organised members of the union were represented.

The third conference which took place recently (April 6th, 1920) again had the possibility of gathering representatives from all parts of Russia, and at this conference more than 550,000 were represented.