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Workers' Opposition

The Workers' Opposition (Russian: Рабочая оппозиция, romanizedRabochaya oppozitsiya) was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia. They advocated the transfer of national economic management to trade unions. The group was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, Sergei Medvedev, Alexandra Kollontai and Yuri Lutovinov. It officially existed until March 1921 when it was forced to dissolve by the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and semi-clandestinely until the subsequent 11th Congress in 1922, where its main exponents teetered dangerously on the verge of being purged for fractionist activity. In some aspects, it was close with the German council communist movement, although there is no information about direct contacts between these groups.[1]

Workers' Opposition
LeaderAlexander Shliapnikov
SpokespersonAlexandra Kollontai
FoundedFebruary 1920 (1920-02)
DissolvedMarch 1921 (1921-03)
Preceded byLeft Communists
Succeeded byWorkers' Group
IdeologyLeft communism
Political positionFar-left
National affiliationRussian Communist Party
Trade union affiliationVarious trade unions

History Edit

Emergence Edit

The emergence of the Workers' Opposition’s “ideological sources” was linked with a statement by Alexander Shlyapnikov, which appeared on November 4, 1917: in his statement, Shlyapnikov proposed expanding the Council of People's Commissars by including representatives “from all Soviet parties”.[2] Their first public appearance as an organized group was at the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), in September 1920, when the faction not only declared its existence, but also summed up the “work to be done”.

First appearances Edit

 
 
Alexander Shlyapnikov and Sergei Medvedev, leaders of the Workers' Opposition.

One of the first speeches of representatives of the "workers' opposition" - the name was coined by Lenin [3] - took place in February 1920, during the 2nd Tula Conference of the RCP (B.), after which the group managed to get a majority of seats in the provincial committee of the party, and its leader - I. V. Kopylov - became the chairman of the new composition of the provincial committee. In response to this, the former members of the provincial committee formed the opposition, directing their activities to prove the inability the "workers' opposition" to manage the affairs of the province; in addition, they began to plan the failure of their political opponents at the next provincial party conference. This confrontation led to an intensification of the struggle within the organization itself: the party’s Novosilsky District committee opposed the election of Kopylov and called for an extraordinary conference. The demand of the old guard was supported in Moscow by members of the party's central committee, who recalled Kopylov at their disposal. The conflict did not end there, because in response, the Zarechensky district committee issued a resolution requesting "to leave Kopylov to work in Tula." The Central Committee nevertheless decided to convene an extraordinary party conference in the province: a resolution evaluating the work as unsatisfactory was adopted by a majority of 185 votes against 49. In response, representatives of the “workers' opposition” Severny and Nikitin left the district committee because of their disagreement with the party line.[4] Having been defeated in Tula, Kopylov’s supporters nevertheless retained their positions in the Zarechensky district organization and the power struggle continued. At that time, support for the workers' opposition in the lower ranks of the party was quite strong: in particular, the number of Tula party organizations was halved between May and November 1920 , mainly due to the exit of the local workers.[4]

From the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920, the workers' opposition matured along the periphery of Moscow Oblast and, by March 1920, took shape in the capital with many trade union leaders joining the group. In the same month, at a meeting of the communist faction of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Shlyapnikov proposed a formula for the separation of powers in the USSR: his simple scheme consisted in the separation of functions of trade unions, Soviets, and the Bolshevik party. According to the leader of the opposition, the party could be the responsible political state leader of the revolutionary struggle and construction, the Soviets - the form of political power, and the trade unions - the only responsible organizations of the national economy and, at the same time, the school of industrial management for workers.[4]

Shlyapnikov's theses caused great concern within the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which saw in them the manifestation of tendencies toward syndicalism in the Soviet trade unions - that is, an attempt on the leading role of the party in the economic sphere. On March 8 and 10, 1920, at meetings of the VTsSPS and MGPSS factions, representatives of the Central Committee Nikolai Bukharin and Nikolay Krestinsky sharply criticized Shlyapnikov’s ideas, accusing him of “syndicalism, guild narrowness, distrust of the Soviets and the party.” In response to such accusations, Lozovsky, who attended the meetings, noted that syndicalists denied the state itself, and Shlyapnikov had a different point of view: the opposition leader did not deny the state and did not encroach on state property; he talked only about the responsibility of trade unions for the economy and the main role of unions in Soviet industry.[4]

In September 1920, at the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), there was a new flash of activity of supporters of the workers' opposition, which was associated with a discussion about the upper and lower classes of the party. Yuri Lutovinov formulated a number of provisions that later became part of the group’s opposition program: in his speech he “fervently insisted on the immediate implementation of the broadest possible labor democracy, on the complete abolition of appointment, and on the strictest cleansing of the party.” The Bolshevik conference did not support this proposal: moreover, at the meeting it was decided to create a control commission, whose task was to prevent the factional struggle in the party. Despite such measures, the speeches of the supporters of the workers' opposition became more frequent throughout the country, and its contradictions with the course of the Central Committee intensified both in the regions and in the center. In particular, in November 1920, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.) was forced to pay special attention to the conflict in the Tula Provincial Committee of the RCP (B.), which flared up with renewed vigor: to clarify the circumstances, the central committee sent a special commission to the province. At the same time, in Moscow itself, the internal party struggle took on a fierce character. In the fall of 1920, playing on the problem of the upper and lower classes, the workers' opposition were able to attract the sympathy of many Bolsheviks to their program and form tangible support for their ideas among the party workers. As a result, at the end of November, at the gubernational conference, the opposition bloc was able to collect almost half of the delegates' votes: 124 against 154 people. As indicated in the Central Committee’s report, "the opposition itself was extremely hostile to the common party line": subsequently, Lenin noted that it came to the point that "the conference ended in two rooms".[4]

Trade-union debate Edit

 
Yury Lutovinov, secretary of the VTsSPS, a key founding member of the Workers’ Opposition

Start of the debate Edit

The "trade-union debate" marked the rise of the "workers' opposition." Relying on the provisions contained in the party program adopted at the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919 - primarily on the part that “trade unions should come to the total concentration of control over the entire national economy" - Shlyapnikov criticized the central committee with his like-minded comrades for “militaristic methods” of working with trade unions, specifically because during the Russian Civil War, unions were massively deprived of independence and absorbed by the government of the RSFSR.[4]

According to Aleksei Semyonovich Kiselyov, serious disagreements with the party leadership among the trade union leaders emerged at the beginning of 1920: he saw them as the main reason for the transition to a policy of militarization of labor. At that time, the majority of trade unions believed that the prospect of the end of active hostilities required, if not a change in policy guidelines, then at least a shift in emphasis in the organization of labor - a transition to economic incentives. In particular, they advocated the improvement of the food situation of the proletariat and the development of "amateur activity" of workers within the framework of trade union organizations. Moreover, the party leadership proceeded from the assumption that in the prevailing conditions at the time of the end of the long war, reliance on conventional methods of industrial management would not be able to prevent the final collapse of the Soviet economy: they believed that emergency measures, including military ones, were necessary.[4]

Positions of the parties Edit

Questions about trade unions became key at meetings of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions on March 8, 10 and 15, 1920. According to Kiselyov, by that time in the leading circles of trade union leaders, three political groups could be identified. The first could be attributed to David Riazanov and Mikhail Tomsky, who believed that trade unions should withdraw from economic affairs and deal primarily with the organization of labor. The second group included those workers who advocated the “merging” of trade unions with the state apparatus. And the third group consisted of Shlyapnikov's supporters, who believed that trade unions should become the sole responsible organizations in the field of the national economy of the RSFSR. Thus, already in the spring of 1920, a heated discussion about trade unions began in Soviet Russia: it became open only in late 1920 - early 1921. At that time, a five-member “trade union commission” was created for the central committees, the tasks of which included both studying and verifying the practical experience of the trade unions, and developing abstracts that would express the Central Committee’s point of view on this issue. However, Alexander Shlyapnikov, Yury Lutovinov and Leon Trotsky, initially included in this commission, refused to participate in it - which only aggravated the differences. Under these conditions, on December 24, the Plenum of the Central Committee decided to open a broad discussion on the question of trade unions.[4]

On December 30, 1920, leaders of intra-party groups spoke at an expanded meeting of the communist faction of the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets and All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, where they outlined their political platforms. The controversy unfolding at the meeting was accompanied by mutual accusations and almost immediately "acquired a bad character." From the beginning of January of the following year, party organizations joined in the discussion of issues: in particular, on January 3, at a meeting of the party’s active in Petrograd, an “Appeal to the Party” was adopted, expressing full support for the Lenin-Zinoviev group, and Trotsky was accused of trying to split the party and professional movement, "in the desire to eliminate unions". At the same time, the resolution proposed to send representatives to the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in proportion to the number of votes cast in support of each group. In addition, a desire was expressed to send agitators to the province who were obliged to provide propaganda and organizational assistance to local supporters of the Leninist group.[4]

Support for the “Workers' Opposition” Platform Edit

Almost from the very beginning, the discussion on trade unions went beyond the usual discussion of the theses of various fractions - and "turned into a kind of formal revealing of party opinion." The question of the future of trade unions was brought up for discussion in district committees and district meetings of the Bolsheviks: usually, after reports of representatives of various platforms, voting was held at meetings. On the whole, the majority of Soviet communists supported the Leninist position; in particular, on January 17, 1921, eight platforms were put to a vote at a meeting of the party’s Moscow committee: 76 people voted for Lenin’s wording, 27 for Trotsky’s ideas, 4 for the theses of the “workers' opposition”, 11 for the Group of Democratic Centralism (who wanted more Soviet autonomy), 25 for the group of Ignatians, and the remaining platforms received less than two votes. On January 25, in the Tula party organization - where Trotsky, Zinoviev and Shlyapnikov acted as rapporteurs - 582 people voted for Lenin-Zinoviev’s resolution, 272 for Trotsky's and 16 delegates for Shlyapnikov's. The Petrograd party organization also supported the Leninist "Platform 10" and it gradually became apparent that the struggle in the capital was waged between the groups of Lenin—Zinoviev and Trotsky.[4]

A more "motley" picture was observed at the county and district meetings: on January 27, in the second Zamoskvoretsky district, 59 votes were cast for "platform 10", 10 for the theses of the "workers' opposition", and seven people supported the Trotskyists; in another district of Moscow - Baumansky - in the central area, 43 people voted for Lenin's thesis, 7 for the "workers' opposition", and 4 people for Trotsky’s principles. The trade unions themselves did not go around the discussion: in particular, at the congress of miners in Moscow, the platform of the "workers' opposition" gathered 61 votes in support, the "platform 10" - 137, and only eight people supported Trotsky's theses.[4]

At the Moscow Provincial Party Conference, held on February 19, 1921 and attended by more than three hundred delegates, there was a scandal: E. N. Ignatov declared support for the platform of the “workers' opposition”, which “caused great concern” among the conference members , since until the last day Ignatov’s group supported “platform 10”. The subsequent vote ended with the following result: “platform 10” received 217 votes, Trotsky's theses - 52, the platform of “workers' opposition” - 45, and the principles of “democratic centralism” - 13 votes. In the central committee of metalworkers, the “workers' opposition” generally took first place: they were given eleven out of twenty votes.[4][3]

10th Congress Edit

At the final stage of the "trade-union debate" of the Soviet Communists, to a large extent, the fate of the trade unions was no longer a cause for concern - the question of which fraction would win the upcoming 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) became more important. As a result, the struggle of the factions escalated into a battle for leadership in the party - which significantly affected the course of the discussion.[4] In the event, the congress passed a secret resolution "On Party Unity" which banned factions within the party and ordered the immediate dissolution of the groups that had been previously formed.[5] The resolution put an end to the aspirations of the Workers' Opposition and the Democratic Centralists.

Another secret resolution specially aimed at the Workers' Opposition was also passed condemning 'the syndicalist and anarchist deviation in our party', which "made further advocacy of the basic tenets of the Workers' Opposition's programme impossible". Yet the Congress shared some of its peripheral proposals, including conducting a purge of the Party and organizing better supply of workers, to improve workers' living conditions, and three of its leaders were elected to the Party Central Committee: Shlyapnikov as a full voting member, Medvedev and Kiselyov as candidate members.[6] Nevertheless, Party leaders subsequently undertook a campaign to subordinate trade unions to the Party and to harass and intimidate those who opposed this campaign.

End of the movement Edit

 
Alexandra Kollontai one of the most prominent spokespersons for the Workers' Opposition.

Members of the former Workers' Opposition continued to advocate their views during the period of the New Economic Policy but increasingly became politically marginalized. Nonetheless, on 5 July 1921 Kollontai took the floor before the Third Congress of the Comintern, bitterly attacking the policies of the Soviet government and warning that NEP 'threatened to disillusion workers, to strengthen the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, and to facilitate the rebirth of capitalism'.[7]

Shlyapnikov and his supporters also conducted discussions with Gavril Myasnikov's Workers Group, but unlike Myasnikov, were determined not to leave the ranks of the Communist Party. At the beginning of 1922, former exponents of the Workers' Opposition, such as Shlyapnikov and Medvedev, and other members of the party of working class origins signed the so-called Letter of the Twenty Two,[8] appealing to the Comintern Executive against suppression of dissent within the Russian party and bourgeois infiltrations into the Soviet state and the party itself. Kollontai co-signed the letter, with her best friend Zoya Shadurskaia, as intellectuals of non-working-class extraction, but in February 1922 she was restrained by Trotsky and Zinoviev from speaking before the Comintern Executive on behalf of the views expressed in the appeal.[9] Shlyapnikov, Kollontai, and Sergei Medvedev narrowly escaped expulsion from the Russian Communist Party at the party's subsequent Eleventh Congress in 1922, while two other signatories of the appeal, Flor Anisimovich Mitin (1882–1937) and Nikolái Vladimirovich Kuznetsov (1898–1937), were expelled.[10] Kollontai later became an important diplomat and Shlyapnikov wrote memoirs.

In the latter half of the 1930s, Shlyapnikov and his closest comrades (Kollontai was not among them) were charged with involvement in a counterrevolutionary group called "Workers' Opposition" and with having linked up with the "counterrevolutionary Trotskyist–Zinovievist terrorist bloc". Despite their proclaiming themselves innocent, both Shlyapnikov and Medvedev, along with many others, were condemned to death and executed in September 1937.[11] In her biography of Shlyapnikov Barbara Allen concludes the last chapter before epilogue, with these words:

There was no 'show trial' of the Workers' Opposition, either because it did not fit the narrative of oppositionism Stalin desired to construct or because Shlyapnikov and his closest comrades did not succumb to pressure to debase themselves and slander others in the service of the 'party'. For them, the party was not Stalin and his band, but a revolutionary political institution organised by workers in order to achieve a better life for the oppressed. This firm conviction helped them resist Stalin's rhetoric and narrative of the party's past and to imagine an alternative to his vision of socialism.

— Barbara C. Allen, Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik, pp. 364-365

After the end of Stalinism, Shlyapnikov was rehabilitated in 1963, Medvedev in 1977. The decision annulling the latter's case for lack of evidence emphasized that "None of those judged on the Workers' Opposition case confessed guilt".[12]

Membership Edit

 
Aleksei Kiselyov, chair of the Miners’ Union and a signatory of the theses of the Workers’ Opposition (but not of the Letter of the 22)

The Workers' Opposition was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, who was also chairman of the Russian Metalworkers' Union, and it consisted of trade union leaders and industrial administrators who had formerly been industrial workers. Alexandra Kollontai, the famous socialist feminist, was the group's mentor and advocate. Other prominent members included Sergei Medvedev and Mikhail Vladimirov (leaders of the Metalworkers' Union), Alexander Tolokontsev [ru] and Genrikh Bruno (artilleries industry leaders), Mikhail Chelyshev (a member of the Party Control Commission), Ivan Kutuzov [ru] (chairman of the Textileworkers' Union), Kirill Orlov (member of the Council of Military Industry and a participant in the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin), and Aleksei Kiselyov (chairman of the Miners' Union). Yuri Lutovinov, a leader of the Metalworkers' Union and of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, sometimes spoke for the group, but sometimes held his own opinion.

Ideology Edit

The Workers' Opposition advocated the role of unionized workers in directing the economy at a time when Soviet government organs were running industry by diktat and trying to exclude trade unions from a participatory role. Specifically, the Workers' Opposition demanded that unionized workers (blue and white collar) should elect representatives to a vertical hierarchy of councils that would oversee the economy. At all levels, elected leaders would be responsible to those who had elected them and could be removed from below. The Workers' Opposition demanded that Russian Communist Party secretaries at all levels cease petty interference in the operations of trade unions and that trade unions should be reinforced with staff and supplies to allow them to carry out their work effectively. Leaders of the Workers' Opposition were not opposed to the employment of "bourgeois specialists" in the economy, but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers, unchecked from below. The "Workers' Opposition" based their ideas on the experience of the first months of Soviet power - a short period when the organization of production was really carried out on the basis of the self-government of the proletarians.[4]

References Edit

  1. ^ At the end of August 1921 and in March 1922 Shlyapnikov rejected invitations from within the leftist Communist Workers' Party of Germany for the Workers' Opposition to participate in the founding of a new International. Also fearing they could be provocations by the Cheka, he replied twice that the Workers' Opposition no longer existed after the 10th Party Congress and that he personally frowned upon any split of the Third International (Allen, Alexander Shlyapnikov, pp. 214 and 241).
  2. ^ Shlyapnikov, Alexander (November 1917). "5". No. 217. News of the Central Executive Committee and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies.
  3. ^ a b Smele, Jonathan (2015). "Workers' Opposition". Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926. Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest; Vol. 2. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 1318. ISBN 9781442252813.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Sandu, Tatyana (2003). ""Workers' Opposition" in the RCP (B.): 1920-1921". Vestnik Ti︠u︡menskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Sot︠s︡ialʹno-Ėkonomicheskie I Pravovye Issledovanii︠a︡. No. 3. Bulletin of the Tyumen State University. Socio-Economic and Legal Studies. pp. 166–170. ISSN 2411-7897.
  5. ^ On Party Unity 16 March 1921; Soviet History Archive (marxists.org) 2002
  6. ^ Allen (Alexander Shlyapnikov), p. 187.
  7. ^ Allen (A Proletarian From a Novel), pp. 183–184.
  8. ^ Shliapnikov. "Shliapnikov: Appeal of the 22. 1922". www.marxists.org.
  9. ^ Allen (Early dissent), p. 31.
  10. ^ Allen (Early dissent), p. 52
  11. ^ Allen (Alexander Shlyapnikov), pp. 362–363. Tolokontsev, Kutuzov Kiselyov and Bruno were also put to death at the same time. Chelyshev "died of a heart attack while under NKVD interrogation rather than confess to outlandish charges" (ibidem, p. 333). Lutovinov had already committed suicide in 1924.
  12. ^ Allen (Alexander Shlyapnikov), p. 367. A few minor figures, however, may have confessed.

Bibliography Edit

  • Allen, Barbara C (January 2015). Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill (Historical Materialism Series). Paperback published by Haymarket Books in 2016.
  • Allen, Barbara C., 'A Proletarian From a Novel': Politics, Identity, and Emotion in the Relationship between Alexander Shliapnikov and Alexandra Kollontai, 1911-1935. "The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review", 35 (2008), No. 2, 21-54
  • Allen, Barbara C., Early dissent within the party: Alexander Shliapnikov and the letter of the twenty-two. "The NEP Era: Soviet Russia 1921-1928", 1 (2007), 21-54
  • Daniels, Robert. The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, Mass., 1960; revised edition, Boulder, Col., 1988.
  • Holmes, Larry E. For the Revolution Redeemed: The Workers Opposition in the Bolshevik Party, 1919-1921. The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, no. 802 (1990).
  • Kollontai, Alexandra. Rabochaya oppozitsiya. Moscow, 1921. Translated into English by Workers' Dreadnought in London (22 April - 19 August 1921) and the IWW in the United States (The Workers' Opposition in Russia, 1921).
  • Rogovin, Vadim Zakharovich (2021). Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Translated by Frederick Choate. Manchester: Mehring Books. ISBN 978-1-893638-97-6.
  • Sorenson, Jay. The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism: 1917-1928. New York, 1969.
  • The Workers' Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: Documents, 1919-30. Edited and translated by Barbara C. Allen. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2021.*

External links Edit

  • Alexandra Kollontai, The Workers' Opposition
  • Theses of the Workers' Opposition

workers, opposition, this, article, includes, list, general, references, lacks, sufficient, corresponding, inline, citations, please, help, improve, this, article, introducing, more, precise, citations, february, 2010, learn, when, remove, this, template, mess. This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations February 2010 Learn how and when to remove this template message The Workers Opposition Russian Rabochaya oppoziciya romanized Rabochaya oppozitsiya was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia They advocated the transfer of national economic management to trade unions The group was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov Sergei Medvedev Alexandra Kollontai and Yuri Lutovinov It officially existed until March 1921 when it was forced to dissolve by the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks and semi clandestinely until the subsequent 11th Congress in 1922 where its main exponents teetered dangerously on the verge of being purged for fractionist activity In some aspects it was close with the German council communist movement although there is no information about direct contacts between these groups 1 Workers OppositionLeaderAlexander ShliapnikovSpokespersonAlexandra KollontaiFoundedFebruary 1920 1920 02 DissolvedMarch 1921 1921 03 Preceded byLeft CommunistsSucceeded byWorkers GroupIdeologyLeft communismPolitical positionFar leftNational affiliationRussian Communist PartyTrade union affiliationVarious trade unionsPolitics of RussiaPolitical partiesElections Contents 1 History 1 1 Emergence 1 2 First appearances 1 3 Trade union debate 1 3 1 Start of the debate 1 3 2 Positions of the parties 1 3 3 Support for the Workers Opposition Platform 1 3 4 10th Congress 1 4 End of the movement 2 Membership 3 Ideology 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External linksHistory EditEmergence Edit The emergence of the Workers Opposition s ideological sources was linked with a statement by Alexander Shlyapnikov which appeared on November 4 1917 in his statement Shlyapnikov proposed expanding the Council of People s Commissars by including representatives from all Soviet parties 2 Their first public appearance as an organized group was at the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks in September 1920 when the faction not only declared its existence but also summed up the work to be done First appearances Edit Alexander Shlyapnikov and Sergei Medvedev leaders of the Workers Opposition One of the first speeches of representatives of the workers opposition the name was coined by Lenin 3 took place in February 1920 during the 2nd Tula Conference of the RCP B after which the group managed to get a majority of seats in the provincial committee of the party and its leader I V Kopylov became the chairman of the new composition of the provincial committee In response to this the former members of the provincial committee formed the opposition directing their activities to prove the inability the workers opposition to manage the affairs of the province in addition they began to plan the failure of their political opponents at the next provincial party conference This confrontation led to an intensification of the struggle within the organization itself the party s Novosilsky District committee opposed the election of Kopylov and called for an extraordinary conference The demand of the old guard was supported in Moscow by members of the party s central committee who recalled Kopylov at their disposal The conflict did not end there because in response the Zarechensky district committee issued a resolution requesting to leave Kopylov to work in Tula The Central Committee nevertheless decided to convene an extraordinary party conference in the province a resolution evaluating the work as unsatisfactory was adopted by a majority of 185 votes against 49 In response representatives of the workers opposition Severny and Nikitin left the district committee because of their disagreement with the party line 4 Having been defeated in Tula Kopylov s supporters nevertheless retained their positions in the Zarechensky district organization and the power struggle continued At that time support for the workers opposition in the lower ranks of the party was quite strong in particular the number of Tula party organizations was halved between May and November 1920 mainly due to the exit of the local workers 4 From the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920 the workers opposition matured along the periphery of Moscow Oblast and by March 1920 took shape in the capital with many trade union leaders joining the group In the same month at a meeting of the communist faction of the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions Shlyapnikov proposed a formula for the separation of powers in the USSR his simple scheme consisted in the separation of functions of trade unions Soviets and the Bolshevik party According to the leader of the opposition the party could be the responsible political state leader of the revolutionary struggle and construction the Soviets the form of political power and the trade unions the only responsible organizations of the national economy and at the same time the school of industrial management for workers 4 Shlyapnikov s theses caused great concern within the Central Committee of the RCP b which saw in them the manifestation of tendencies toward syndicalism in the Soviet trade unions that is an attempt on the leading role of the party in the economic sphere On March 8 and 10 1920 at meetings of the VTsSPS and MGPSS factions representatives of the Central Committee Nikolai Bukharin and Nikolay Krestinsky sharply criticized Shlyapnikov s ideas accusing him of syndicalism guild narrowness distrust of the Soviets and the party In response to such accusations Lozovsky who attended the meetings noted that syndicalists denied the state itself and Shlyapnikov had a different point of view the opposition leader did not deny the state and did not encroach on state property he talked only about the responsibility of trade unions for the economy and the main role of unions in Soviet industry 4 In September 1920 at the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks there was a new flash of activity of supporters of the workers opposition which was associated with a discussion about the upper and lower classes of the party Yuri Lutovinov formulated a number of provisions that later became part of the group s opposition program in his speech he fervently insisted on the immediate implementation of the broadest possible labor democracy on the complete abolition of appointment and on the strictest cleansing of the party The Bolshevik conference did not support this proposal moreover at the meeting it was decided to create a control commission whose task was to prevent the factional struggle in the party Despite such measures the speeches of the supporters of the workers opposition became more frequent throughout the country and its contradictions with the course of the Central Committee intensified both in the regions and in the center In particular in November 1920 the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP B was forced to pay special attention to the conflict in the Tula Provincial Committee of the RCP B which flared up with renewed vigor to clarify the circumstances the central committee sent a special commission to the province At the same time in Moscow itself the internal party struggle took on a fierce character In the fall of 1920 playing on the problem of the upper and lower classes the workers opposition were able to attract the sympathy of many Bolsheviks to their program and form tangible support for their ideas among the party workers As a result at the end of November at the gubernational conference the opposition bloc was able to collect almost half of the delegates votes 124 against 154 people As indicated in the Central Committee s report the opposition itself was extremely hostile to the common party line subsequently Lenin noted that it came to the point that the conference ended in two rooms 4 Trade union debate Edit Main article Trade union debate Russia Yury Lutovinov secretary of the VTsSPS a key founding member of the Workers OppositionStart of the debate Edit The trade union debate marked the rise of the workers opposition Relying on the provisions contained in the party program adopted at the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks in 1919 primarily on the part that trade unions should come to the total concentration of control over the entire national economy Shlyapnikov criticized the central committee with his like minded comrades for militaristic methods of working with trade unions specifically because during the Russian Civil War unions were massively deprived of independence and absorbed by the government of the RSFSR 4 According to Aleksei Semyonovich Kiselyov serious disagreements with the party leadership among the trade union leaders emerged at the beginning of 1920 he saw them as the main reason for the transition to a policy of militarization of labor At that time the majority of trade unions believed that the prospect of the end of active hostilities required if not a change in policy guidelines then at least a shift in emphasis in the organization of labor a transition to economic incentives In particular they advocated the improvement of the food situation of the proletariat and the development of amateur activity of workers within the framework of trade union organizations Moreover the party leadership proceeded from the assumption that in the prevailing conditions at the time of the end of the long war reliance on conventional methods of industrial management would not be able to prevent the final collapse of the Soviet economy they believed that emergency measures including military ones were necessary 4 Positions of the parties Edit Questions about trade unions became key at meetings of the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions on March 8 10 and 15 1920 According to Kiselyov by that time in the leading circles of trade union leaders three political groups could be identified The first could be attributed to David Riazanov and Mikhail Tomsky who believed that trade unions should withdraw from economic affairs and deal primarily with the organization of labor The second group included those workers who advocated the merging of trade unions with the state apparatus And the third group consisted of Shlyapnikov s supporters who believed that trade unions should become the sole responsible organizations in the field of the national economy of the RSFSR Thus already in the spring of 1920 a heated discussion about trade unions began in Soviet Russia it became open only in late 1920 early 1921 At that time a five member trade union commission was created for the central committees the tasks of which included both studying and verifying the practical experience of the trade unions and developing abstracts that would express the Central Committee s point of view on this issue However Alexander Shlyapnikov Yury Lutovinov and Leon Trotsky initially included in this commission refused to participate in it which only aggravated the differences Under these conditions on December 24 the Plenum of the Central Committee decided to open a broad discussion on the question of trade unions 4 On December 30 1920 leaders of intra party groups spoke at an expanded meeting of the communist faction of the 8th All Russian Congress of Soviets and All Union Central Council of Trade Unions where they outlined their political platforms The controversy unfolding at the meeting was accompanied by mutual accusations and almost immediately acquired a bad character From the beginning of January of the following year party organizations joined in the discussion of issues in particular on January 3 at a meeting of the party s active in Petrograd an Appeal to the Party was adopted expressing full support for the Lenin Zinoviev group and Trotsky was accused of trying to split the party and professional movement in the desire to eliminate unions At the same time the resolution proposed to send representatives to the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks in proportion to the number of votes cast in support of each group In addition a desire was expressed to send agitators to the province who were obliged to provide propaganda and organizational assistance to local supporters of the Leninist group 4 Support for the Workers Opposition Platform Edit Almost from the very beginning the discussion on trade unions went beyond the usual discussion of the theses of various fractions and turned into a kind of formal revealing of party opinion The question of the future of trade unions was brought up for discussion in district committees and district meetings of the Bolsheviks usually after reports of representatives of various platforms voting was held at meetings On the whole the majority of Soviet communists supported the Leninist position in particular on January 17 1921 eight platforms were put to a vote at a meeting of the party s Moscow committee 76 people voted for Lenin s wording 27 for Trotsky s ideas 4 for the theses of the workers opposition 11 for the Group of Democratic Centralism who wanted more Soviet autonomy 25 for the group of Ignatians and the remaining platforms received less than two votes On January 25 in the Tula party organization where Trotsky Zinoviev and Shlyapnikov acted as rapporteurs 582 people voted for Lenin Zinoviev s resolution 272 for Trotsky s and 16 delegates for Shlyapnikov s The Petrograd party organization also supported the Leninist Platform 10 and it gradually became apparent that the struggle in the capital was waged between the groups of Lenin Zinoviev and Trotsky 4 A more motley picture was observed at the county and district meetings on January 27 in the second Zamoskvoretsky district 59 votes were cast for platform 10 10 for the theses of the workers opposition and seven people supported the Trotskyists in another district of Moscow Baumansky in the central area 43 people voted for Lenin s thesis 7 for the workers opposition and 4 people for Trotsky s principles The trade unions themselves did not go around the discussion in particular at the congress of miners in Moscow the platform of the workers opposition gathered 61 votes in support the platform 10 137 and only eight people supported Trotsky s theses 4 At the Moscow Provincial Party Conference held on February 19 1921 and attended by more than three hundred delegates there was a scandal E N Ignatov declared support for the platform of the workers opposition which caused great concern among the conference members since until the last day Ignatov s group supported platform 10 The subsequent vote ended with the following result platform 10 received 217 votes Trotsky s theses 52 the platform of workers opposition 45 and the principles of democratic centralism 13 votes In the central committee of metalworkers the workers opposition generally took first place they were given eleven out of twenty votes 4 3 10th Congress Edit Main article 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks At the final stage of the trade union debate of the Soviet Communists to a large extent the fate of the trade unions was no longer a cause for concern the question of which fraction would win the upcoming 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Bolsheviks became more important As a result the struggle of the factions escalated into a battle for leadership in the party which significantly affected the course of the discussion 4 In the event the congress passed a secret resolution On Party Unity which banned factions within the party and ordered the immediate dissolution of the groups that had been previously formed 5 The resolution put an end to the aspirations of the Workers Opposition and the Democratic Centralists Another secret resolution specially aimed at the Workers Opposition was also passed condemning the syndicalist and anarchist deviation in our party which made further advocacy of the basic tenets of the Workers Opposition s programme impossible Yet the Congress shared some of its peripheral proposals including conducting a purge of the Party and organizing better supply of workers to improve workers living conditions and three of its leaders were elected to the Party Central Committee Shlyapnikov as a full voting member Medvedev and Kiselyov as candidate members 6 Nevertheless Party leaders subsequently undertook a campaign to subordinate trade unions to the Party and to harass and intimidate those who opposed this campaign End of the movement Edit Alexandra Kollontai one of the most prominent spokespersons for the Workers Opposition Members of the former Workers Opposition continued to advocate their views during the period of the New Economic Policy but increasingly became politically marginalized Nonetheless on 5 July 1921 Kollontai took the floor before the Third Congress of the Comintern bitterly attacking the policies of the Soviet government and warning that NEP threatened to disillusion workers to strengthen the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie and to facilitate the rebirth of capitalism 7 Shlyapnikov and his supporters also conducted discussions with Gavril Myasnikov s Workers Group but unlike Myasnikov were determined not to leave the ranks of the Communist Party At the beginning of 1922 former exponents of the Workers Opposition such as Shlyapnikov and Medvedev and other members of the party of working class origins signed the so called Letter of the Twenty Two 8 appealing to the Comintern Executive against suppression of dissent within the Russian party and bourgeois infiltrations into the Soviet state and the party itself Kollontai co signed the letter with her best friend Zoya Shadurskaia as intellectuals of non working class extraction but in February 1922 she was restrained by Trotsky and Zinoviev from speaking before the Comintern Executive on behalf of the views expressed in the appeal 9 Shlyapnikov Kollontai and Sergei Medvedev narrowly escaped expulsion from the Russian Communist Party at the party s subsequent Eleventh Congress in 1922 while two other signatories of the appeal Flor Anisimovich Mitin 1882 1937 and Nikolai Vladimirovich Kuznetsov 1898 1937 were expelled 10 Kollontai later became an important diplomat and Shlyapnikov wrote memoirs In the latter half of the 1930s Shlyapnikov and his closest comrades Kollontai was not among them were charged with involvement in a counterrevolutionary group called Workers Opposition and with having linked up with the counterrevolutionary Trotskyist Zinovievist terrorist bloc Despite their proclaiming themselves innocent both Shlyapnikov and Medvedev along with many others were condemned to death and executed in September 1937 11 In her biography of Shlyapnikov Barbara Allen concludes the last chapter before epilogue with these words There was no show trial of the Workers Opposition either because it did not fit the narrative of oppositionism Stalin desired to construct or because Shlyapnikov and his closest comrades did not succumb to pressure to debase themselves and slander others in the service of the party For them the party was not Stalin and his band but a revolutionary political institution organised by workers in order to achieve a better life for the oppressed This firm conviction helped them resist Stalin s rhetoric and narrative of the party s past and to imagine an alternative to his vision of socialism Barbara C Allen Alexander Shlyapnikov 1885 1937 Life of an Old Bolshevik pp 364 365 After the end of Stalinism Shlyapnikov was rehabilitated in 1963 Medvedev in 1977 The decision annulling the latter s case for lack of evidence emphasized that None of those judged on the Workers Opposition case confessed guilt 12 Membership Edit Aleksei Kiselyov chair of the Miners Union and a signatory of the theses of the Workers Opposition but not of the Letter of the 22 The Workers Opposition was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov who was also chairman of the Russian Metalworkers Union and it consisted of trade union leaders and industrial administrators who had formerly been industrial workers Alexandra Kollontai the famous socialist feminist was the group s mentor and advocate Other prominent members included Sergei Medvedev and Mikhail Vladimirov leaders of the Metalworkers Union Alexander Tolokontsev ru and Genrikh Bruno artilleries industry leaders Mikhail Chelyshev a member of the Party Control Commission Ivan Kutuzov ru chairman of the Textileworkers Union Kirill Orlov member of the Council of Military Industry and a participant in the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin and Aleksei Kiselyov chairman of the Miners Union Yuri Lutovinov a leader of the Metalworkers Union and of the All Union Central Council of Trade Unions sometimes spoke for the group but sometimes held his own opinion Ideology EditThe Workers Opposition advocated the role of unionized workers in directing the economy at a time when Soviet government organs were running industry by diktat and trying to exclude trade unions from a participatory role Specifically the Workers Opposition demanded that unionized workers blue and white collar should elect representatives to a vertical hierarchy of councils that would oversee the economy At all levels elected leaders would be responsible to those who had elected them and could be removed from below The Workers Opposition demanded that Russian Communist Party secretaries at all levels cease petty interference in the operations of trade unions and that trade unions should be reinforced with staff and supplies to allow them to carry out their work effectively Leaders of the Workers Opposition were not opposed to the employment of bourgeois specialists in the economy but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers unchecked from below The Workers Opposition based their ideas on the experience of the first months of Soviet power a short period when the organization of production was really carried out on the basis of the self government of the proletarians 4 References Edit At the end of August 1921 and in March 1922 Shlyapnikov rejected invitations from within the leftist Communist Workers Party of Germany for the Workers Opposition to participate in the founding of a new International Also fearing they could be provocations by the Cheka he replied twice that the Workers Opposition no longer existed after the 10th Party Congress and that he personally frowned upon any split of the Third International Allen Alexander Shlyapnikov pp 214 and 241 Shlyapnikov Alexander November 1917 5 No 217 News of the Central Executive Committee and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies a b Smele Jonathan 2015 Workers Opposition Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars 1916 1926 Historical Dictionaries of War Revolution and Civil Unrest Vol 2 Rowman amp Littlefield p 1318 ISBN 9781442252813 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Sandu Tatyana 2003 Workers Opposition in the RCP B 1920 1921 Vestnik Ti u menskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta Sot s ialʹno Ėkonomicheskie I Pravovye Issledovanii a No 3 Bulletin of the Tyumen State University Socio Economic and Legal Studies pp 166 170 ISSN 2411 7897 On Party Unity 16 March 1921 Soviet History Archive marxists org 2002 Allen Alexander Shlyapnikov p 187 Allen A Proletarian From a Novel pp 183 184 Shliapnikov Shliapnikov Appeal of the 22 1922 www marxists org Allen Early dissent p 31 Allen Early dissent p 52 Allen Alexander Shlyapnikov pp 362 363 Tolokontsev Kutuzov Kiselyov and Bruno were also put to death at the same time Chelyshev died of a heart attack while under NKVD interrogation rather than confess to outlandish charges ibidem p 333 Lutovinov had already committed suicide in 1924 Allen Alexander Shlyapnikov p 367 A few minor figures however may have confessed Bibliography EditAllen Barbara C January 2015 Alexander Shlyapnikov 1885 1937 Life of an Old Bolshevik Leiden The Netherlands Brill Historical Materialism Series Paperback published by Haymarket Books in 2016 Allen Barbara C A Proletarian From a Novel Politics Identity and Emotion in the Relationship between Alexander Shliapnikov and Alexandra Kollontai 1911 1935 The Soviet and Post Soviet Review 35 2008 No 2 21 54 Allen Barbara C Early dissent within the party Alexander Shliapnikov and the letter of the twenty two The NEP Era Soviet Russia 1921 1928 1 2007 21 54 Daniels Robert The Conscience of the Revolution Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia Cambridge Mass 1960 revised edition Boulder Col 1988 Holmes Larry E For the Revolution Redeemed The Workers Opposition in the Bolshevik Party 1919 1921 The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies no 802 1990 Kollontai Alexandra Rabochaya oppozitsiya Moscow 1921 Translated into English by Workers Dreadnought in London 22 April 19 August 1921 and the IWW in the United States The Workers Opposition in Russia 1921 Rogovin Vadim Zakharovich 2021 Was There an Alternative Trotskyism a Look Back Through the Years Translated by Frederick Choate Manchester Mehring Books ISBN 978 1 893638 97 6 Sorenson Jay The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism 1917 1928 New York 1969 The Workers Opposition in the Russian Communist Party Documents 1919 30 Edited and translated by Barbara C Allen Leiden The Netherlands Brill 2021 External links EditAlexandra Kollontai The Workers Opposition Theses of the Workers Opposition Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Workers 27 Opposition amp oldid 1171008442, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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