Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy

Lenin’s document on the reorganization of trade unions. It was written from December 30, 1921 to January 4, 1922, it is a summary of experience accumulated during the period from the Tenth Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B) Central Committee to the Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B) in restructuring trade unions, it was submitted to the Political Bureau of All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Central Committee for consideration in the form of the Draft Resolution on January 12, 1922, and it was adopted as the basis and submitted to the Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B) as the decision of the Central Committee of All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), i.e., “The Draft Resolution of the Central Committee on Trade Unions”, on January 17, 1922, in Pravda issue No. 12 (slightly revised). The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 42 of the second revised edition of the Complete Works of Lenin.

The New Economic Policy has made some significant changes in the situation of the proletariat, and it became necessary to raise the trade union work to a prominent position. In order to point out the thinking and direction of trade union work, Lenin wrote this article, briefly explaining the task of trade union under the background of New Economic Policy. The main points are as follows: (1) One of the most important tasks of the trade union is to fully safeguard the class interests of the proletariat from all aspects when there is a conflict between labor and capital in private enterprises. In the state-owned enterprises, due to the urgent need to improve labor productivity, to make every state-owned enterprise turn from loss to profit and change to the so-called economic accounting, in fact, is to a considerable extent to implement the principles of commerce and capitalism. This will inevitably lead to the phenomenon of standard interests and excessive enthusiasm for them, which will inevitably lead to some antagonism between the workers and the managers of state-owned enterprises, that is, managers or competent departments of enterprises, and therefore, the trade unions of state-owned enterprises also have the task of safeguarding the interests of the proletariat and the working masses.

(2) Different from the purpose of the working class struggles under the capitalist system, in the proletarian countries wherein transition to socialism is undergoing, the main way for trade unions to safeguard the interests of workers is not launching workers’ strikes, instead the ultimate purpose of the strike struggle can only be to fight against the bureaucratic maladies, mistakes and shortcomings in the management, and fight against the class ambition of the capitalists to escape the state supervision, so as to consolidate the proletarian state and the state power of the proletariat. As for the protection of workers’ interests, such as the settlement of conflicts between labor and capital, between employees and employers, the normal way that workers directly complaining to state organs should be adopted. (3) The trade union should be the most intimate and indispensable cooperator of the state power. The general forms and functions of the trade union’s participation in the management of state economic organs and state organs are as follows: To participate in the personnel arrangement of all economic organs and state organs related to the economy by means of recommending candidates and providing consultation; to promote and train administrative personnel from workers and the general working masses; to participate in the work of all planning organs of the proletarian state; to formulate wage and supply standards, etc. The most important thing is that trade unions should conscientiously do solid, long-term, and responsible work, and train all workers on the ground to manage the national economy.

(4) The most basic condition for the success of trade union work is to have comprehensive contact with the masses of working class. During the period of transition to socialism, for the Communists Russia, the most terrible danger would be to separate themselves from the masses when leading such a big country with small-scale peasant economy was dominant and peasants formed the majority of the population and when there was no assistance from the proletarian of the advanced countries.

Lenin reminded the trade unions to put themselves in a proper position and become a transmission device between the Communist Party and the masses. It is required that the Soviet organs leading the cultural and educational work and all the members of the Communist Party in the trade unions should pay more attention to the ideological struggle against the influence, ideological trend and tendency of the petty bourgeoisie in the trade union when the New Economic Policy allows and develops capitalism to some extent, and we should unite the broad masses of Non-Party workers and step up efforts to resist the remnants of petty bourgeois ideology in trade unions and its impact on the working class. Otherwise, socialist construction will inevitably suffer. (5) The trade unions should take good care of all the experts who work hard, are proficient in and love their business as much as they take good care of their eyes. On the issue of experts, the trade unions undertake an extremely arduous task, which is to focus on the interests of the labor and the national economy as a whole rather than the interests of its own foundation, formulate work plans in terms of protecting the needs of experts, encouraging excellent experts, safeguarding the interests of experts, etc., and regularly educate the masses of workers to establish correct mutual relations with experts and achieve practical results. Only in this way can great achievements be made in the cause of socialist construction.

This article not only formulates the program of trade union work under the condition of New Economic Policy, but also puts forward many new ideas and develops the trade union theory of Marxism, which is of practical significance for backward countries to correctly carry out trade union work in the transitional period.