Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

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.)