local Bolsheviki in the factories and on the railroads to stand behind the party, and direct the rest of the workers in their meetings. Local Bolshevik leadership was not very difficult to obtain, for the State controlled the jobs of the workers, their livelihood, and their very lives. Opposition to "the labor discipline" must not come out too boldly. As a result, local works' councils generally are Bolshevik in character. For example, in one section of Moscow in a number of factories there are 16,000 employees. But only 687 of them are Bolshevik party members and sympathizers, whi1e the works' councils are, as a rule, composed of members of this small minority.[1]
The composition of these works' councils or Soviets indicates the kind of representatives sent to the Capitol—shows how false is the political democracy of Russia, even abstracting from the anti-democratic electoral laws. And since these works' councils are the present slight apparatus of industrial democracy, their composition proves also that Russia has not industrial democracy. Lenin recognizes that neither political nor industrial democracy rules in Russia. He hopes, however, that under the stress of revolution and necessity, such a spirit will spread among the Russian people as to develop true industrial and political democracy out of the dictatorship of the class-conscious vanguard of the militant proletariat, and out of the dictatorship of experts and Bolshevik works' councils in industrial life.
The labor unions early merged themselves into the Bolsheviki State, their activity centering itself in sending members to the Board of National Economy, and in giving advice to the Commissars and the heads of the Centros. No information is at hand concerning the party affiliation of the leaders of the Trade Unions and the position of the rank and file, except in isolated cases and from indirect reports, but it is, no doubt, similar to
- ↑ American Federationist, editorial, February, 1920.
