At the congress of the trade unions held early in 1921, Trotzky declared: "It will be necessary to reorganize the unions without delay, that is, first of all to shift the personnel of the more responsible positions." In other words, he proposed to apply generally the system of appointment of labor union officials by the Communist Party—which he had already instituted on the railways. The name he gave to this policy was: "democracy in the matter of production." Even Lenin himself at this meeting made fun of this strange perversion of language—although it is entirely typical of the usual Bolshevist inversions in the use of words. Lenin declared that Trotzky's plan was merely an increase of "bureaucratism." (From report of the All-Russian Conference of Professional or Labor Unions, Pravda, January 13, 1921.)
Lenin accused Trotzky of lack of tact in discussing these matters in public. Lenin's own methods are more secretive. He believes that the all-powerful Communist Party, aided by the Red Terror and the Extraordinary Commission, can secure the "election" of "trade union" officials by the methods hitherto employed. What these methods are we can see from a passage already quoted:
"We must know how to apply, at need, knavery, deceit, illegal methods, hiding truth by silence, in order to penetrate the very heart of the trade unions, to remain there and to accomplish there the Communist task. (Lenin, in "Radicalism, the Infantile Malady of Communism.")
Lenin's "trade union" program, as he declared at the above meeting, is that the unions should be "per-
