capitalism. Such an organ was formed in May, 1918, under the name of the Committee of Public Construction of the Supreme Economic Council, with corresponding local and provincial sections. Their task consists in re-organizing the whole building industry in all its branches. The union gives its best members to these committees."
In Russia the workers have no parasitic class to support. They get the full product of their labor. Hence, their eagerness to take advantage of every scientific means of saving labor, such as the specialization of labor, concentration of the industries, etc. That their participation in the working out of such measures is fully appreciated may be judged by the following statement from the Chemical Workers:
"We may say without exaggeration that not one branch of our industry, including the Chemical Section of the Supreme Economic Council, has been organized without being acknowledged and approved by the Central Committee of the National Union of Chemical Workers."[1]
The local activities of the trade unions' industrial educational work is carried on by the shop committees. These bodies, besides seeing to it that all labor laws and agreed upon conditions are lived up to, operate a whole series of educational and welfare institutions such as the trade unions in other countries hardly dream of yet. Every large factory has its technical school, library, art and music school, theatre, etc.
With regard to the second general phase of the unions' share in the technical side of of industry; viz., participation in the actual management of the plants, a long and interesting evolution has taken place. In the fierce industrial struggles during the Kerensky regime the principal weapons of the workers were the shop committees. They sprang up everywhere in the heat of the battle. Most of them were independent organizations, as the national trade unions developed somewhat later. Being extremely militant, the shop committees became the cutting edge of the industrial revolution. Even before the October uprising they had wrested from the employers a large share of control over the labor and business side of industry, and as that upheaval proceeded they became a potent means
- ↑ The booklets from which this and the three preceding quotations are made were written by the heads of the respective organizations and published by the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions in 1920.
52
