Should Communists Participate in Reactionary Trade Unions?

From the British Communist publication The Workers' Dreadnought, this article by Lenin was published for the first time in English at the end of January, 1921.

The German “Lefts” (Communistiche Arbeiter Partei), after having considered this question, have definitely rejected the proposition of participation in reactionary Trade Union activities. They consider that mere denunciation and declamation against the reactionary, counter-revolutionary unions is sufficient. The barrenness and futility of such participation by "revolutionary ” Communists in yellow, social patriotic, reactionary and counter-revolutionary Trade Unions of Legien and Co., is emphasized by the “Left " Communist leader Horner more than by others.

Notwithstanding the certainty of the German "Lefts" that such tactics are revolutionary, they are, in reality, fundamentally erroneous and consist of but hollow phrases. In order to clarify this issue, I will take examples from our own experiences.

The general plan of this article aims to adapt that part of our Russian experience which can be profitably applied to Western Europe and which is unavoidably in keeping with the history and contemporary tactics of Bolshevism.

The interrelations of leaders, parties, class, and mass, and the relations of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Communist Party to the Trade Unions is represented in Russia, at the present time, concretely in the following form. The Proletarian Dictatorship is realised through the Communist Party (Bolsheviki), which counts in its ranks 611,000 members according to the latest reports of the ninth convention of the Party, held in April, 1921. Before and after the November Revolution the membership fluctuated, and was much smaller even during 1918 and 1919. We fear the abnormal increase of the Party, for political and intellectual adventurers— who usually deserve to be shot—naturally attempt to insinuate themselves into the Party by cajolery and chicanery. The last time that we threw the doors of the Party wide open to the workingmen and peasants was in the winter of 1918, when Yudenitch was a few miles from Petrograd and Denikin reached Orel - 350 versts from Moscow —that is when the Soviet Republic was menaced on all sides and in deadly danger. In these dark days, the careerists and other unreliable elements, did not join the Party because, instead of receiving responsible and remunerative positions, they would expect to be sent to the gallows and tortured by counter-revolutionists.

The Communist Party meets annually in convention and is represented by one delegate for each 1,000 members. It is headed by a Central Committee elected at the Convention and consisting of nineteen members, while the current work is conducted by a still smaller group at Moscow — the Collegium—called the Organisation and Political Bureaux, consisting of five members each, who are in turn elected by the plenary session of the C.E.C. No important political or organisation question is decided by any State institution of the Soviet Republic without the sanction of the C.E.C. of the Communist Party.

The Party in its work is directly supported by the Trade Unions which now count in their ranks, according to reports from their convention in April, 1920, over four million members, and which are nominally independent of the Party. (Ed. note. The Russian Trade Unions, according to latest reports in Izvestia, now number over five million members.) As a matter of fact, all the executive bodies of the vast majority of the Trade Unions, and of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, are composed of Communist Party members who carry out all the instructions of the Party.

By this means, the Party maintains close contact with the working-class and the masses, and out of nominally non-Communist and flexible machinery is developed a broad and mighty proletarian apparatus through which, under the leadership and direction of the Communist Party, is realised the Dictatorship of the working-class.

Without maintaining this close contact with the Trade Unions, without their active support, without their self-sacrifice and work, not only in the industries and economic reconstruction, but upon the military field it would be impossible to realise the Proletarian-Dictatorship or to govern the country, not only for two and one-half years, but for two and one-half months.

It is obvious that in order to bring about this close contact with the Trade Unions and the masses, very arduous and intricate work of propaganda and agitation is necessary. Frequent and timely conferences with leading officials are necessary, not only in connection with directing the masses, but also to keep in touch with every influential and active man in all the Trade Unions.

It also means a decisive conflict with the Mensheviki, who even now though small in number exercise a certain influence. Their adherents are taught to use various methods of counter-revolutionary trickery — beginning with the ideological defence of bourgeois democracy; the preaching of “independence” of the Trade Unions, i.e. making the unions independent of proletarian State power: culminating in sabotage and the destruction of proletarian discipline, etc.

We do not consider that juncture with the masses through Trade Unions in itself sufficient. Conferences of working men and peasants who have no political affiliation were created during the progress of the Revolution which the Communists seek to support, broaden, and develop into institutions through which we can keep in touch and understand the masses, answer their inquiries and develop from out of their ranks men fitted for government posts, etc.

The People’s Commissariat of State Control was recently reorganised by decree into the Workers’ and Peasants’ Bureaux of inspection to which the conferences of non partisan workers and peasants were invited to send delegates to participate in the elections of members to the State control commission, created for the purpose of controlling the different departments.

It must be understood that the work of the Party is carried on through the Soviets, which unite all working masses, regardless of distinctions in trades or industries. The county conventions of Soviets are democratic institutions such as even the best bourgeois parliamentary democracies have never conceived — and through these Soviets, which are kept under the vigilance of the Party, and by assigning class-conscious workers to all village posts, achieves for the proletariat the leading role in their relation to the peasantry and realises the dictatorship of the city proletariat through the constant conflict for the suppression of the rich, exploiting, speculating bourgeois peasantry.

All this is the general mechanism of the Proletarian State Power as examined by the leaders from the point of view of the practical realisation of the dictatorship. We trust that the reader will understand that the Russian Bolsheviki were familiar with this mechanism and watched it develop.