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Resolutions on Trade Unions and Soviets.
This resolution was taken by some comrades to mean immediate subordination of the unions to the State; and the second All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions, held in January, 1919, on the question of the character of the relations between the soviet organs and the trade unions and their gradual merging declared:
"The task of socialising all means of production and the organisation of society on a new socialist basis demands stubborn, prolonged work on the reconstruction of the whole government machine, the creation of new organs of control and regulation of production and consumption resting upon the organised initiative of the masses of the workers themselves.
"This compels the trade unions to take a more active and energetic part in the Soviets, by direct participation in all the state organs, by organising mass proletarian control over their activities, by carrying out separate tasks which might confront the soviet government through their organisations, by cooperating in the reconstruction of various state departments and by the gradual substitution of them by their own organisations by means of fusing the organs of the union with those of the state.
"It would be a mistake, however, in the present stage of development of trade unions with the, as yet, imperfect state organisation, immediately to convert the unions into state organs and to merge the former into the latter or for the unions arbitrarily to usurp the functions of the state. The whole process of complete fusion of the trade unions with the state organs (the process which we call nationalisation of trade unions) must take place as the inevitable result of their joint close and harmonious working and the preparation by the trade unions of the broad masses of the workers for the task of managing the state machine and all the administrative organs."
The perspective outlined by the second congress was subjected to a new test: a year and three months of stern civil war passed and whatever the trials of the trade unions, with the exception of an insignificant minority they fought shoulder to shoulder with the soviet government against the Russian and world counter-revolution. It was this organic connection with the soviet government which the third All-Russia Congress advanced in the first instance: "The trade unions in Soviet Russia"—says the first resolution—"practically became an inseparable part of the soviet system, a necessary supplement and support of the proletarian dictatorship of the Soviets." The second important resolution of the congress with reference to organisation lays it down that "the trade unions are the fundamental basis of the proletarian state, the sole organisers of labour in the process of production and the chief tool in economic construction." These two definitions give an exhaustive description of the trade unions in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. The trade unions are the foundation and support of the soviet state—a necessary supplement to the organs of proletarian dictatorship—the soviets; the chief tool of economic construction; and the only organisers of labour in the process of production. These are the functions and the place of the trade unions in the proletarian state based on thirty months experience of joint work and struggle and this experience was registered by the resolutions of the third All-Russia Congress.
