Under pressure from Sovnarkom, it thereafter became the task of the trade unions to persuade workers to forfeit the control of industrial enterprises that they had seized and to follow the guidance of the trade unions, so that local interests would not prevail over the demands of the national economy (now governed by VSNKh, which was at the same time being purged of members loyal to the Left Bolsheviks). The unions could also act as mediators between workers and management, but as time went on, their independence in this regard was eroded, and the right to strike was removed. Indeed, it became clear that elements within the Soviet government regarded the trade unions as little more than a branch of the state machinery (specifically, the People’s Commissariat for Labor), a development that the Bolshevik head of the union organization, M. P. Tomskii, seemed disinclined to resist. In this regard, the unions, from the point of view of the Soviet government, could be called upon to oversee tasks quite divorced from those traditionally associated with trade unions, such as mobilization for the Red Army and the formation of food supply detachments for the Food Army.
Matters came to a head in December 1920, when L. D. Trotsky, drawing on his experience as joint head of both Glavpolitput′ (the Main Political Section of the People’s Commissariat for Rail Transport) and Tsektran (the Central Committee of the Union of Workers in Rail and Water Transport), advocated the complete “statification” of the unions, through their fusion with the chief organs of industrial administration, and argued that in a workers’ state the only concern of trade unions should be increasing productivity. There was a link here also with Trotsky’s advocacy of Labor Armies. Although the militarization of labor had been a creeping feature of Soviet life since April 1918, when key workers in the mining industry had first been forbidden to leave their jobs, putting the case so bluntly aroused opposition from V. I. Lenin (supported by G. E. Zinov′ev and others in the so-called Platform of 10), who proposed that the unions should maintain some independence as “schools for Communism,” drawing nonparty workers into socially responsible labor. Trotsky’s position was also criticized by members of the Workers’ Opposition, who proposed that control of the economy should be completely removed from the state and transferred to congresses of producers from the local to the national level. At the 10th Party Congress in March 1921, the program of the Platform of 10 was adopted, with 336 votes cast in its favor (as opposed to 50 for Trotsky’s platform and 18 for the Workers’ Opposition).
During the Democratic Counter-Revolution of the summer of 1918, many trade unions dominated by Mensheviks in peripheral industrial regions of the country (notably the Urals) tended to collaborate with the Bolsheviks’ enemies—Komuch, the Provisional Siberian Government, and so forth—but when the Whites took control of the anti-Bolshevik movement, the unions found themselves persecuted and generally became pro-Soviet in outlook, despite their opposition to the aforementioned developments on Soviet territory.
trade unions, all-russian central council of. The leading organ of the trade union movement in Russia was first elected by the Third All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions at Petrograd on 20–28 June 1917. It initially contained more Mensheviks than Bolsheviks and had a Menshevik chairman (V. P. Grinevich), but following the October Revolution, at the First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions at Petrograd on 7–14 January 1918, seven of the nine men elected to it were Bolsheviks, and G. E. Zinov′ev was made chairman. He was soon succeeded, in March 1918, by M. P. Tomskii. During the civil wars, the council participated in the administration and management of nationalized industries, as well as in the creation of the Red Army. In 1924, its name was changed to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions.
TRANSBAIKAL COSSACK HOST. Occupying lands along the Chinese border, centered on Chita, in the southern reaches of Transbaikal oblast′, and living in 63 stanitsy and 514 smaller settlements, the Transbaikal Cossack Host had a population of some 250,000 by 1917. During the First World War, it managed to place 13,000 men under arms. (One of the Transbaikal units, the 1st Nerchinsk Regiment, was commanded by then colonel P. N. Wrangel.)
The Transbaikal Host came out against Soviet rule in late 1917, under the influence of G. M. Semenov, and in the course of the civil wars raised 14 mounted regiments and 4 batteries for service in the armies of Admiral A. V. Kolchak. With the collapse of the Whites in Siberia and the establishment on their territory of the pro-Soviet Far Eastern Republic, many Transbaikal Cossacks chose to continue the struggle against Bolshevism in the Maritime Province, in the ranks of the Far Eastern (White) Army and other such White formations, before emigrating to China, Australia, and elsewhere.
Atamans of the Transbaikal Cossack Host of the civil-war period were Colonel E. G. Sychev (August 1918; acting January–August 1918) and G. M. Semenov (from 13 June 1919).
TRANSCASPIAN FRONT. This Red front was created on 24 July 1918, by the government of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, to combat the forces of the Transcaspian Provisional Government at Ashkhabad (Aşgabat). It was initially controlled by joint military-political and military-operational staffs, but from 17 April 1919 was governed by a single revvoensovet. Its complement included a variety of Red Guards and other formations and a number of internationalist detachments formed from the many former prisoners of war that had been held in Central Asia, together totaling around 4,500 men. The front operated on the territory of the Transcaspian oblast′ and the Khanate of Khiva, and along the lower reaches of the Amu Daria River.
In August 1918, the forces of the Transcaspian Front managed to break through enemy lines and captured Bairam-Ali and Merv, but were soon forced to withdraw to Ravnina station, 100 miles southwest of Chardzhuia. New offensives against the Whites in the following year were more effective, capturing Kaakha on 3 July and Ashkhabad on 9 July 1919, although the Red forces were then faced with the threat of attacks from the Basmachi force of Junaïd-khan. On 22 November 1919, all forces of the Transcaspian Front were united into a Transcaspian Army Group, with the exception of those operating around Krasnovodsk, who became the 1st Turkestan Rifle Division.
Commanders of the Transcaspian Front were B. N. Ivanov (24 July 1918–9 May 1919), A. P. Sokolov (17 May–6 August 1919), and S. P. Timoshkov (8 August–22 November 1919).
TRANSCASPIAN PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. This anti-Bolshevik government was formed at Ashkhabad (Aşgabat), as a consequence of the anti-Soviet rising there (the Ashkhabad Uprising) on 11–12 July 1918, which had been (partially) organized by the Provisional Executive Committee of the Transcaspian (Ashkhabad) oblast′. The government included representatives of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (PSR), the Mensheviks, and Turkmen nationalist organizations and was chaired by F. A. Funtikov of the PSR. By late July 1918, it had established its authority over most of the Transcaspian oblast′, partly as a result of the support offered to it by the British military mission at Meshed, in Northern Persia (Norperforce), which sent a detachment of sepoys to Ashkhabad to guard the new government. On 19 August 1918, the regime signed an agreement with the head of that mission, General W. Malleson, that placed the conduct of its military affairs in the region in the latter’s hands. (This is one reason that Soviet historians always blamed the British military for the execution of the Twenty-six Commissars in Transcaspia on 20 September 1918.) In January 1919, the government collapsed and power passed to a more conservative Committee of Social Salvation. This too collapsed when British forces began to leave Transcaspia (April–July 1919); subsequently, control of anti-Bolshevik forces east of the Caspian Sea passed to the Whites, in the shape of representatives of General A. I. Denikin’s Armed Forces of South Russia. Forces of the Red Army’s Transcaspian Front entered Ashkhabad on 9 July 1919, and by February 1920, having seen off the last resistance at Krasnovodsk, had control of the entire oblast′.