The role of the trade unions within a socialist society was debated at length at the First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions, held from 7th to 15th January, 1918. As with the All-Russian Soviet Congresses of 1917, the delegates tended to come from the more militant north and central regions of the country. Their mandate to represent the estimated 2.5 million unionised Russian workers did not bear much scrutiny, although it is probable that in early 1918–after the Decrees on workers’ control and peace, but before War Communism and the suppression of the Soviets–most workers did support the Bolshevik government. The key issue was trade union independence. Speaking for the Bolsheviks, Zinoviev told the Congress they were in favour of trade union independence, “but only from the bourgeoisie”. He considered that after October independence as such had no meaning. They now had to become organs of the state.
In early 1918 Martov was still allowed to address gatherings like the All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions. He told delegates that the transfer of power had not been as complete as Zinoviev claimed, and that in view of possible counter-revolution the trade unions needed to be built up, not diluted. He agreed the unions must play their part in preventing counter-revolution, “insofar as consideration of the actual forces available permit the union to modify the plans of the (state) power”.2 At the close the Congress voted on two resolutions: one from the Bolsheviks that advocated trade union absorption into the machinery of the state, and another from the Mensheviks that maintained the principle of independence. The result was 182 votes for the Bolsheviks and 84 for the Mensheviks.
The foundation of Soviet labour relations had been established. It constituted “an overweening commitment to production and to planning”,3 in which the trade unions would play a key collaborative role. It would now be trade unions and their local agents, the Factory Committees, who were responsible for promoting productivity and for ensuring discipline and attendance in the workplace.
By the end of 1919 this system was already cracking. Workers had taken strike action against the Bolshevik government, and thereby the workers’ state, for a number of reasons, some industrial, some political. Strikes had been crushed. Trade unionists had been arrested, sometimes shot. Even Bolshevik trade unionists were angry with the interference and compulsion to which the government was subjecting the unions. At the same time the economy was in ruins. The transport infrastructure was shattered. Food and other essential supplies were hardly moving. In December 1919, Trotsky (now devoting less time to the Red Army as it became clearer that the Reds were going to defeat the Whites in the Civil War) turned his attention to economic policy.
On 17th December Pravda published Trotsky’s “theses” on the problem of the transition from a war to a peace economy (the theses had been submitted to the Central Committee in secret but by “accident” they were published). The theses proposed that the Commissariat of War assume the duties of the Commissariat of Labour, and that the methods used to mobilise the Red Army be applied to labour and industry. In essence workers would be treated like soldiers, directed and compelled to go wherever the state decreed and fulfill whatever tasks they were given. The trade unions were not mentioned. Trotsky’s proposals became known as the “Militarisation of Labour”.
There was an immediate reaction from the unions. Trotsky and Lenin, who whole-heartedly supported the proposals at the time, were shouted down at party and union meetings. Only a minority of People’s Commissars–Rykov, Miliutin, Nogin and Tomsky–were opposed. In January 1920 Sovnarcom issued a Decree which laid out general regulations for a universal labour service that would supply all branches of the economy on the basis of a general economic plan. The tenor of the Decree is revealed by an aside to the document, which revealed Sovnarcom now had cause to “regret the destruction of the old police apparatus” because it had “known how to register citizens, not only in towns but also in the country”.4
On 12th January Lenin and Trotsky attended a meeting of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (ARCCTU) and urged upon them the general scheme of the militarisation of labour. Of sixty Bolshevik trade union leaders present, only two supported them. The leading Bolshevik trade unionist and Chair of the ARCCTU Mikhail Tomsky argued for the principle of “collective management”, i.e. for a co-partnership role for the trade unions and for their right to make and influence managerial decisions. This was as far as leading Bolsheviks could go in overt criticism of Lenin and Trotsky. It was a clear challenge to their authority from the heart of working-class Bolshevism.
The controversy exploded at the Ninth Russian Communist Party Congress, held from 29th March to 4th April, 1920. The Congress debated Tomsky’s call for “collegial management” in industry instead of the one-man management favoured by Lenin and Trotsky. Tomsky’s proposal argued:
The basic principle in building the organs for regulating and administering industry, the only one capable of guaranteeing the participation of the broad non-party working masses through the trade unions, is the presently existing principle of the collegial administration of industry, beginning with the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council and concluding with the plant administration.5
The Seventh Congress of Soviets and the Central Trade Union Council had both supported Tomsky’s call for collegial management, i.e. for the input and influence of the organised working class. This meant nothing to Lenin. He rejected the idea of collective workers’ management as “utopian”, “injurious” and “impractical”.
Trotsky went even further than Lenin. He completely rejected the views of the Soviet Congress and the Central Trade Union Council (both of which were dominated by Bolsheviks) and told the Congress:
Elected collegia, composed of the very best representatives of the working class, but not possessing basic technical knowledge, cannot replace one technician who has gone to a special school and who knows how to handle a given job. Collegial management is an entirely natural reaction of a young, revolutionary, recently oppressed class, which rejects the individual commands of yesterday’s masters, bosses, commanders, but this is not the last word on building the state economy of the proletarian class.6
Neither Lenin nor Trotsky seem to have considered the option of retaining the technician for technical advice only, whilst an elected collegia of workers gained administrative experience.
Trotsky openly mocked the idea of working-class independence. He bluntly told the Ninth Party Congress, “The working class cannot be left wandering all over Russia. They must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded, just like soldiers”. He added, “Deserters from labour ought to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps”. He called this “the progressive essence of Taylorism”.7
In Terrorism and Communism, written at the time, Trotsky explained his reasoning:
The young socialist state requires trade unions not for a struggle for better conditions of labour, but to organise the working class for the ends of production, to educate and discipline […] to exercise their authority hand in hand with the state in order to lead the workers into the framework of a single economic plan.
He rejected the concept of collective management as “a Menshevik idea”. In Diane P. Koenker’s estimation, “Trade Union independence was the keystone of the alternative model of labour relations, which was embraced by the Menshevik Party”.8 Despite themselves, a de facto alliance between Bolshevik trade unionists and the Menshevik party was now established on the issue.