Role of Trade Unions in the October Revolution
Padam Kumar
Trade unions played a leading role in the October revolution. That’s
why we can see today the right of the working people to associate in
trade unions and other social and public organizations is guaranteed by
the Constitution of the USSR (art. 51). We cannot ignore the leading
character of trade unions even today. At the beginning of 1975 the
trade unions had 106 million members (see Table 1).
Table 1. Trade union membership in pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR
|
Year |
Number |
| 1905 |
80,000 |
| 1907 |
245,000 |
| 1913 |
45,000 |
| 1918 |
2,638,000 |
| 1925 |
7,740,000 |
| 1932 |
16,500,000 |
| 1949 |
28,500,000 |
| 1954 |
40,400,000 |
| 1959 |
52,781,000 |
| 1963 |
68,000,000 |
| 1966 |
80,000,000 |
| 1968 |
86,000,000 |
| 1972 |
98,000,000 |
| 1974 |
103,000,000 |
According to V. I. Lenin’s definition,
the trade unions are
educational organizations designed to involve and instruct
people—schools of administration, management, and communism that play
an important role in carrying out political and economic tasks and in
involving the working people in the management of production (V. I.
Lenin, Poln. sobr. sock, 5th ed., vol. 42, p. 203) [From "Draft Theses
on the Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic
Policy", Collected Works, 4th ed., vol. 42, p. 379.]
The book “What
Is to be Done”? and other works by Lenin, as well as the resolutions of
the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903), pointed out the necessity of
establishing trade unions to protect the class interests of the
proletariat under tsarism and imperialism and emphasized the role and
significance of trade unions as a school for class struggle. The
importance of party leadership of the trade unions was noted, and the
theoretical and organizational principles of the trade union movement
were defined. Underscoring the historical inevitability and necessity
of the formation of trade unions as an organization of the industrial
proletariat, Lenin wrote that "the
development of the proletariat did
not, and could not, proceed anywhere in the world otherwise than
through the trade unions, through reciprocal action between them and
the party of the working class” (ibid, vol. 41, p. 33-34) [From "
'Left-Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder," ibid, vol. 20, p. 41.]
On the occasion of 100th anniversary of the great socialist revolution,
we must learn the lessons of the legacy of the Soviets, as an organ
that unified and organized the masses in trade unions and mobilized in
struggle for the overthrow of the tsarist power, against the
bourgeoisie and for the construction of the workers' and the people’s
power.
The role of the trade unions for overthrowing the tsarist regime, was
important as comrade Lenin pointed out that “the trade unions in the
leaderships of Bolsheviks, in their class character, their
determination of power, their philosophy and qualitative leap in which
they evolved, they did not confine themselves to demand only for wages
and the eight hour day; they fought for more; for political power, for
the government, for the leadership, of the state and society.”
This was how they grew and became representative bodies of the working
class; later to fronts of armed resistance against the class enemy to
overthrow it; and besides demanding social and economic gains, they
included political demands; including the highest; the seizure of
political power and the rule of working class and peasantry. In this
creative dynamics trade unions became the embryo of the popular mass
struggle.
The forerunners of the trade unions in Russia were the strike
committees and the strike funds for resistance, which originated at
enterprises during the mass working-class movement of 1895-96 and
restricted their activity to economic tasks.
The Social Democratic groups and the League of Struggle for the
Emancipation of the Working Class, which led the strike struggle before
trade unions were organized, played an important role in preparing
workers for the founding of mass trade unions.
Unlike the trade unions of western Europe, the trade unions of Russia
were founded during the epoch of imperialism; when there was already a
revolutionary Marxist party of the proletariat. As a result, the
Russian trade unions were revolutionary and militant.
A qualitatively new type of trade union emerged spontaneously during
1905-07. During the January strikes of 1905, strike committees, Soviets
of factory deputies, and other workers’ organizations were established
at the largest enterprises in the industrial cities.
In 1905 in the context of the typographers’ strike that mobilized the
solidarity of the majority of the working class of the city with
demonstrations, clashes with the troops and barricades.
The workers’ organizations, which gave rise to the first trade unions,
led the strikes and fought for the improvement of working conditions.
Trade union organizations emerged in March 1905 at the Putilov,
Obukhov, and Semiannikov plants and at many other plants in St.
Petersburg.
Trade unions were soon established in virtually all the major cities
and industrial centres in central Russia and the national border regions.
Most of the unions were founded between October and December 1905.
The trade unions organized workers by industry and occupation (shop).
Most of the small unions united workers in a single trade. The trade
unions organized strikes and work stoppages and set aside a portion of
their resources for strike funds. They established dining halls,
hostels, and employment offices for the unemployed; negotiated with
management to improve working conditions; established evening and
Sunday schools for workers, as well as libraries and reading rooms; and
published newspapers and journals. The regulations of many trade unions
included demands for higher wages, the eight-hour workday, free medical
care, the abolition of fines, and permission to celebrate May 1.
From the time trade unions were organized, the Bolshevik Party waged a
stubborn struggle against the petit bourgeois parties—the Mensheviks
and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR’s)—for leadership of the trade
unions and for their transformation into party strongholds. The
Bolshevik Party also struggled against reformist and
anarcho-syndicalist tendencies in the trade union movement, and it
opposed trade union neutrality. In his article “Trade Union
Neutrality,” Lenin wrote that the party should work in the trade unions
“not in the spirit of trade union neutrality but in the spirit of the
closest possible relations between them and the Social Democratic
Party” (ibid, vol. 16, p. 427) ibid, vol. 13, p. 460]. Bolsheviks headed the major industrial
trade unions. Most of the non-industrial, small trade unions were under
the influence of the petit bourgeois parties.
In the autumn of 1905 inter-union bodies were established in Moscow,
St. Petersburg, Kharkov, and certain other proletarian centres. The
main task of the newly established central trade union bureaus was to
unify the trade unions and prepare for an all-Russian trade union
congress.
Representatives of trade union organizations from St. Petersburg,
Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav, and Nizhny Novgorod participated in the Moscow
Conference renamed the First All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions,
which opened on Sept. 24, 1905. The conference exposed the divisive
politics of the Mensheviks, who opposed the Bolshevik proposal for
convening an all-Russian congress of trade unions and advocated an
“all-workers’ congress,” which they viewed as a means of establishing a
“broad” workers’ party instead of a revolutionary Marxist party of the
working class. At the First All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions, the
first attempt was made to centralize the trade union movement by
preparing for the convocation of an all-Russian congress of trade
unions. The Second All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions (St.
Petersburg, February 1906) elected an organizational commission for the
convocation of the trade union congress.
With the decline of the revolution and the intensification of
repression, it became impossible to convene a trade union congress.
Between 1905 and 1907 more than 100 trade union newspapers and journals
were published in Russia. After the suppression of the December armed
uprisings, many trade unions were crushed. By the beginning of 1908
there were 95 illegal trade unions, which used both legal and illegal
forms of struggle, including participation in various societies and
congresses associated with the people’s universities, factory
physicians, the fight against alcoholism, and the women’s movement. A
new revolutionary upsurge began in 1910, as the strike struggle
intensified. The Bolshevik press paid a great deal of attention to the
trade unions. For example, in a section entitled “The Trade Union
Movement,” the newspaper Pravda provided systematic information on
trade union activity and published articles presenting Lenin’s point of
view on the trade union movement.
Many trade union organizations were suppressed during World War I
(1914-18). Trade unions led by the Bolsheviks opposed the imperialist
war and called on the workers to boycott the war industries committees.
The idea of the Bolshevik party that the defeat of the 1905 did not
mean the end of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class
movement.
The desire for freedom and democracy of the working masses, the strike
struggle of millions of workers in the form of trade unions. The
victory of the February revolution overthrew the rule of tsar but
established a government of bourgeoisie.
The mobilization of the trade unions, the peasant uprisings, the
revolts of the soldiers on the battlefronts especially the trade unions
of St Petersburg and Moscow.
October 25 (November 7) 1917, the planning of the Bolsheviks became a
reality. And the vanguard of the revolution played its role in the
forms of trade unions.
The victory of the February Revolution of 1917 created the conditions
for trade union activity. In March-April 1917, 130 trade unions were
organized in Petrograd and Moscow. Throughout the country, a total of
about 2,000 trade unions were established, organizing up to 1.5 million
people. Factory committees (fabzavkoms, or FZK’s) were established.
With the assistance of the trade unions and the factory committees, the
Bolshevik Party involved the working people in meetings and
demonstrations against the policies of the bourgeois Provisional
Government and its supporters, the Mensheviks and SR’s.
The Third All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions was held in Petrograd
in June 1917. The delegates included 73 Bolsheviks; 17 non-party
delegates who supported the Bolsheviks; 105 SR’s, Mensheviks, and
Social Democrats belonging to no faction; and delegates affiliated with
the non-Bolshevik groupings. The conference discussed basic questions,
such as control over production and over the distribution of output,
the relationship between the trade unions and the factory committees,
and the struggle against unemployment. As a result of the numerical
preponderance of the SR’s and the Mensheviks, conciliatory SR-Menshevik
resolutions were adopted on the most important questions, but the
resolutions did not receive support in the provinces. The provisional
All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS) elected by the
conference had 35 members, including 16 Bolsheviks. It became the
central body of the trade union movement. In 1917 the Sixth Congress of
the RSDLP (Bolshevik) passed the resolutions The Tasks of the Trade
Union Movement and The Party and the Trade Unions, which were important
to the development and consolidation of the trade unions. Members of
the trade unions and the factory committees participated in the defeat
of General Kornilov’s counterrevolutionary revolt. During the period
when the October Socialist Revolution was prepared and carried out,
representatives of the trade unions and the factory committees joined
the bodies directing the armed uprising, procured and stored weapons,
organized the instruction of detachments of the Red Guard, established
ties with the soldiers, and carried out the measures outlined by the
revolutionary military committees.
After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917 there were
fundamental changes in the role and tasks of the trade unions, which
were transformed from semi-legal organizations of the oppressed and
exploited classes into social associations of the proletariat, which
had become the ruling class. The trade unions played a major role in
the struggle to establish and consolidate Soviet power, in the
destruction and re-creation of the machinery of state, in the
organization of workers’ control, in the nationalization of industry,
and in the inculcation of conscious labour discipline in the workers.
Trade union associations focused on the working and living conditions
of the working people. Evaluating the role of the trade unions, Lenin
wrote in the spring of 1920: “Without close contacts with the trade
unions, and without their energetic support and devoted efforts, not
only in economic, but also in military affairs, it would of course have
been impossible for us to govern the country and to maintain the
dictatorship for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years”
(ibid., vol. 41, p. 31).
[From " 'Left-Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder", ibid, vol. 31, p. 48.]
Non-political trade unions are not revolutionary unions
The role of trade union in the great October revolution could not be
possible if the trade unions were non-political. In “What is to be
done” Lenin pointed out the difference between a political spontaneous
upsurge and non-political spontaneous upsurge i.e. “the famous St.
Petersburg industrial revolts of 1896 were simply the resistance of the
oppressed, whereas the systematic strikes represented the class
struggle in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes were simply
trade union struggles, not yet social-democratic struggles.”
The First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions, which was held in
Petrograd from January 7 to January 14 (January 20-27), 1918, was
attended by 416 delegates with a casting vote and 75 with a
consultative vote, including 273 Bolsheviks, 21 Left SR’s, six
Maximalists, six anarcho- syndicalists, 66 Mensheviks, ten Right SR’s,
and 34 non-party delegates. The trade union congress pointed out that
the trade unions should concentrate on questions of economic
organization, including participation in all-central bodies regulating
production, the organization of workers’ control, the registration and
distribution of labour power, the organization of exchange between the
city and the countryside, the struggle against sabotage, and the
enforcement of the universal obligation to work. In addition, the trade
union congress recognized the necessity of merging the factory
committees and the trade unions and affirmed the principle of
organizing trade unions by industry. The demands of the SR-Menshevik
delegates for trade union “neutrality” were rejected by the trade union
congress, which passed a resolution stating that neutrality “conceals
actual support for bourgeois policies and the betrayal of the interests
of the working class.” The trade union congress emphasized that the
trade unions should completely support the policies of Soviet power.
The resolution of the party central committee was published in
Proletary, No.-17 along with an article entitled “the trade unions and
the social democratic party” that “among the proletarian parties the
question of neutrality is unlikely not to evoke any serious
controversy. The case is different with the non-proletarian
quasi-socialist parties like our Socialist- Revolutionaries, who are in
the fact the extreme left wing of the revolutionary bourgeois party of
the intellectuals and progressive peasants.”
Click here to return to the April 2018 index.