Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/89

 branch is the conference of committees, which form the branch; the running work of the branch is carried out by its executive, elected at the conference of Committees.

All district branches of a given Government or region form the Government branch of the union, controlled by the Government conference and the Government executive; the Government conference is composed of representatives elected at the district conferences of committees at a fixed proportion, and in the Government town at the city conference of committees; the Government executive and the revision committee are elected by the Government conference.

The number of branches of the union is 416; they are united into 41 Government departments. Thus each Government department on the average includes ten branches. At the present moment the federation unites 646,040 members on Russian territory, excluding Siberia, the Ukraina and Turkestan, where the process of organisation of the union is not yet terminated—while at the time of the Second Special Congress in May, 1919, the union counted only 350,000 members; i.e., in the course of one year the number of members increased by about 300,000 or 100 per cent. Each district branch on the average includes 800 members; and all the 375 district branches, about 300,000 members. Each city branch Me a Government town) has on the average 8,440 members, and 41 Government towns together contain 346,000 members.

To these we must add 25,000 members in Turkestan, where the branches of the unions are being united by the regional committee which only in the end of March of this year got into touch with the central committee of the union—it could not do it before, this region being cut off from Soviet Russia.

As regards the borders—Siberia, Ukraina (the Ural is included in the above figures), no exact information can be obtained up to now; neither regarding the restoration of the union organisations destroyed or more or less damaged during the domination of Denikin and Koltchak, nor regarding the number of members of the organisations which have already been called into life again, with the exception of the Kharkoff, Kieff and Ekaterinoslaff branches counting together about 35,000 members.

The chief organ of the union is the All-Russian Congress convoked once a year. This elects the central committee and its Board for the management of the activity of the union, which varries on the daily routine work and represents the union.

The plenum of the central committee is convoked every two months. The delegates to the All-Russian Conference are elected at the Government conferences according to a fixed proportion. At the 2nd Special Congress in 1919 the central committee elected was composed as follows: 21 members, of whom 12 were communists, 6 partisans of the independence of the trade union movement, 3 internationalists; the Board of the central committee was composed of 11 members—6 communists, 3 partisans of the independence of the trade union movement and 2 internationalists; after the fusion of the Inter-