MIA > Archive > Kollontai > Workers Opposition
In a basic yet brief outline we have already explained what it is that causes the crisis in our party. Now we shall make clear what are the most important points of the controversy between the leaders of our party and the Workers’ Opposition. There are two such points: The part to be played, and the problems confronting the trade unions during the reconstruction period of the national economy, coupled with the organization of production on the communist basis, and the question of self-activity of the masses coupled with bureaucracy in the party and soviets.
Let us answer the first question, as the second is the sequence of the first. The period of “making theses” in our party has already ended. Before us we find six different platforms, six party tendencies. Such a variety and such minute variations of shades in its tendencies our party has never seen before, and the party thought has never been so rich in formula on one and the same question. It is, therefore, obvious that the question is a basic one and very important.
And such it is. The whole controversy simmers down, to one basic question: Who shall build the communist economy, and how shall it be built? This is, moreover, the essence of our program; this is its heart. This question is not less, if not more important, than the question of seizure of the political state by the proletariat. Only the Bubnoff group of so-called political centralism may be so near-sighted as to underestimate its importance and to say: “The question concerning trade unions at the present moment has no importance whatsoever, and presents none of the theoretical difficulties.”
It is, however, quite natural that the question seriously agitates the party as it is in reality the question: in what direction shall we turn the wheel of history – shall we turn . it back or move it forward? It is also natural that there is not a single communist in the party who would remain non-committal during the discussion of this question. As a result we have six different groups.
If we begin, however, to carefully analyze all the theses of these most minutely divergent groups we find that on the basic question – who shall build the communist economy and organize the production on the new basis – there are only two points of view. One is that which is expressed and formulated in the statement of principles of the Workers’ Opposition, and the other is one that unites all the rest of the groups, differing only in shades, but identical in substance.
What does the statement of the Workers’ Opposition stand for, and how does the latter understand the part that is to be played by the trade unions, or, to be more exact, by the industrial unions at the present moment? “We believe that the question of reconstruction and development of the productive forces of our country may be solved only if the entire system of control over the people’s economy is changed” (From Shliapnikoff’s report, Dec. 30th). Take notice, comrades, – “only if the entire system of control is changed.” What does it mean? “The basis of. the controversy,” – goes on the report, – “revolves around the question: by what means during this period of transformation can our Communist party carry out its economic policy: – whether by means of workers organized into their class unions, or – over their heads – by bureaucratic means, through canonized functionaries of the state.” The basis of the controversy is namely this: whether we shall realize communism through workers or over their heads, by the hands of soviet officials. And let us, comrades, ponder whether it is possible to attain and build a communist economy by the hands and creative abilities of the scions from the other class, who are imbued with their routine of the past? If we begin to think as Marxians, as men of science, we shall answer categorically and explicitly – no.
The root of the controversy and the cause of the crisis lies in the supposition that “practical men,” technicians, specialists and managers of capitalist production can suddenly release themselves from the bonds of their traditional conceptions of ways and means of handling labor, which had been deeply ingrained into their very flesh through the years of their service to capital, and acquire the ability to create new forms of production, of labor organization and of incentives to work.
To suppose that, is to forget the incontestable truth that a system of production can not be changed by a few individual geniuses, but by the requirements of a class.
Just imagine for a moment that during the transitory period from the feudal system founded on slave labor to the system of capitalist production, with its alleged free hired labor in the industries, (the bourgeois class lacking at that time the necessary experience in the organization of capitalist production), were to invite all the clever, shrewd, experienced managers of the feudal estates who had been accustomed to deal with servile chattel slaves, and entrust to them the task of organizing production on a new capitalist basis. What would happen? Would these specialists in their own sphere, depending on the whip to increase productivity of labor, succeed in handling a “free,” though hungry, proletarian, who had released himself from the curse of involuntary labor and had become a soldier or a day laborer? Would not these experts wholly destroy the newly born and developing capitalist production? Individual overseers of the chattel slaves, individual former landlords, and their managers were able to adapt themselves to the new forms of production, but it was not from their ranks that the real creators and builders of the bourgeois capitalist economy were recruited.
The class instinct whispered to the first owners of the capitalist establishments that it is better to go slowly and use common sense in place of experience in search of the new ways and means in establishing relations between capital and labor, than to borrow the antiquated useless methods of exploitation of labor from the old outlawed system. The class instinct quite correctly told the first capitalists during the first period of capitalist development that in place of the whip of the overseer they must apply another incentive: rivalry, personal ambition of workers facing unemployment and misery. And the capitalists, having grasped this new incentive to labor, this new conqueror of labor, were wise enough to use it in order to promote the development of bourgeois capitalist forms of production by increasing the productivity of “free” hired labor to a high degree of intensity.
Five centuries ago the bourgeoisie acted also in a cautious way carefully listening to the dictates of their class instincts. They relied more on their common sense than on the experience of the skillful specialists in the sphere of organizing production on the old feudal estates. The bourgeoisie was perfectly right as history has showed us.
We possess a great weapon that can help us to find the shortest road to the victory of the working class, diminish suffering along the way, and more quickly bring about the new system of production – communism.
This weapon is the materialistic conception of history. However, instead of using it, widening our experience and correcting our researches in conformity with history we are ready to throw this weapon aside, and follow the encumbered circuitous road of blind experiments.
Whatever our economic distress happens to be we are not justified in going to such an extreme degree of despair, for despair can overcome only the capitalist governments standing with their backs to the wall; after exhausting all the creative impulses of capitalist production they find no solution to their problems.
As far as toiling Russia is concerned, for whom since the October revolution has been opened new unprecedented opportunities of economic creation, as well as development of new unheard-of forms of production, with an immense increase in productivity of labor, there is no room for despair.
It is only necessary not to borrow from the past, but, on the contrary, give complete freedom to the creative powers of the future. This is what the Workers’ Opposition is doing. Who can be the builder and the creator of communist economy? That class – and not individual geniuses of the past – which is organically bound with newly developing, painfully born forms of production of a more productive and perfect system of economy. Which organ – the pure class industrial unions, or the heterogeneous soviet economic establishments – can formulate and solve the creative problems in the sphere of organizing the new economy and its production? The Workers’ Opposition considers that it can be done only by the first, that it, by the workers’ collective, and not by the functional bureaucratic socially-heterogeneous collective with a strong admixture of elements of the old capitalist type, whose mind is clogged by the refuse of capitalistic routine.
“The workers’ unions from the present position of passive assistance to the economic institutions must be drawn into an active participation in the management of the entire economic structure” (the theses of the Workers’ Opposition). To seek, find, and create new and more perfect forms of economy, to find new incentives to the productivity of labor – all this can be done only by the workers’ collectives that are closely bound with the new forms of production; only they from their everyday experience may draw certain, at first glance only practically important, and yet exceedingly valuable theoretical conclusions in handling the new labor power in a new labor state where misery, poverty, unemployment and competition on the labor market ceases to be the incentives to labor.
To find a stimulus, an incentive to work – this is the greatest task of the working class standing on the threshold to communism. None other, however, but the working class itself in the form of its class collective is able to solve this great problem.
The solution of this problem, as it is proposed by the industrial unions, consists in giving complete freedom to the workers as regards experimenting, class training, adjusting and feeling out the new forms of production, as well as expression and development of their creative abilities, that is, to that class which alone can be the creator of communism. This is the way the Workers’ Opposition handles the solution of this difficult problem from which follows the most essential point of their theses. “Organization of control over the social economy is a prerogative of the All-Russian Congress of producers, who are united in the trade and industrial unions which elect the central body directing the whole economic life of the republic”’ (Theses of the Workers’ Opposition). This point secures freedom for the manifestation of class creative abilities, not restricted and crippled by the bureaucratic machine which is saturated with the spirit of routine of the bourgeois capitalist system of production and control. The Workers’ Opposition relies on the creative powers of its own class – the workers. From this premise is deducted the rest of the program.
But right at this point there begins the deviation of the Workers’ Opposition from the line that is followed by the party leaders. Distrust toward the working class (not in the sphere of politics, but in the sphere of economic creative abilities) is the whole essence of the theses signed by our party leaders. They do not believe that by the rough hands of workers, untrained technically, can be created those basic outlines of the economic forms from which in the course of time shall develop a harmonious system of communist production.
To all of them – Lenin, Trotzky, Zinovieff and Bucharin – it seems that production is such a “delicate thing” that it is impossible to get along without the assistance of “directors.” First of all we shall “bring up” the workers, “teach them,” and only when they grow up shall we remove from them all the teachers of the Supreme Council of Natural Economy and let the industrial unions take control over the production. It is, after all, significant that all the theses written by the party leaders coincide in one essential feature: for the present we shall not give control over the production to the trade unions; for the present we “shall wait.” It is also true that Trotzky, Lenin, Zinovieff and Bucharin’s points of view differ in stating the reason – why the workers should not be entrusted with running the industries just at present, but they all unanimously agree that just at the present time the management over the production must be carried on over the workers’ heads by means of a bureaucratic system inherited from the past.
On this point all the leaders of our party are in complete accord. “The center of gravitation in the work of the trade unions at the present moment – assert the ‘Ten’ in their theses – must be shifted into the economic industrial sphere. The trade unions as class organizations, of workers built up in conformity with their industrial functions must take on themselves the major work in organization of production” (boldface ours). “Major work” is a too indefinite term which permits of various interpretations, and yet, it would seem, the platform of the “Ten” gives more leeway for the trade unions in running the industries than Trotzky centralism. Is this the case, however? Further, the theses of the Ten go on to explain what they mean by “major work” of the unions. “The most energetic participation in the centers which regulate production and control, register and distribute labor power, organize exchange between cities and villages, fight against sabotage and carry out decrees on different compulsory labor obligations, etc.” This is all. Nothing new and nothing more than what the trade unions have already been doing, and which can not save our production nor help in the solution of the basic question – raising and developing the productive forces of our country.
In order to make clear the fact that the program of the “Ten” does not give to the trade unions any of the directing functions, but assigns to them, only an auxiliary role in the management of production, the authors of it say: “In a developed stage (not at present, but in a developed stage) the trade unions in their process of social revolution must become organs of the social authority, working as such, in subordination to other organizations, toward carrying out the new principles of organization of the economic life.” By this they meant to say that the trade unions must work in subordination to the Supreme Council of National Economy and its branches. What is the difference then with that and “joining by growth” which was proposed by Trotzky. The difference is only in methods. The theses of the “Ten” strongly emphasize the educational nature of the trade unions. In their formulation of problems for the trade unions, mainly in the sphere of organization, industry and education, our party leaders as clever politicians suddenly convert themselves into “teachers.”
This peculiar controversy is revolving not around the system of management in industry, but mainly around the system of bringing up the masses. In fact when one begins to turn over the pages of the stenographic minutes and speeches made by our prominent leaders, one is astonished by the unexpected manifestation of their pedagogic proclivities. Every author of the theses proposes the most perfect system of bringing up the masses, but all these systems of “education” lack provisions for freedom of experiment, for training and expressing creative abilities by those who are to be taught; in this respect all our pedagogues are also behind the times. The trouble is that Lenin, Trotzky, Bukharin and others limit the functions of the trade unions not to the control over production or taking over the industries, but to a mere school of bringing up the masses. During the discussion to some of our comrades it seemed that Trotzky stands for a gradual “absorption of the unions by the state” – not all of a sudden, but gradual, and wants to reserve for them the right of ultimate control over production, as it is expressed in our program. This point, it seemed at first, put Trotzky on a common ground with the Opposition at a time when the group represented by Lenin and Zinovieff, being opposed to “the absorption by the state,” sees the object of the union activity and their problem in “training for communism.” “Trade unions,” – thunder Trotzky and Zinoview – “are necessary for the rough work” (page 22 of the report, Dec. 30th). Trotzky himself, it would seem, understands the task somewhat differently; in his opinion the most important work of the unions consists in organizing production. In this he is perfectly right; he is also right when he says: “Inasmuch as unions are schools of communism they are such schools not in carrying on general propaganda (for in such a case they would play the part of clubs), not in mobilizing their members for military work or collecting the produce tax, but for the purpose of all-round education of their members on the basis of their participation in production.” (Trotzky’s report, December 30th). All this is true, but there is one grave omission; the unions are not only schools for communism, but they are its creators as well.
Creativeness of the class is being lost sight of. Trotzky substitutes it by initiative of “the real organizers of production,” by communists inside the unions (from Trotzky’s report, Dec. 30th). What communists? According to Trotzky, those communists who are appointed by the party to responsible administrative positions into the unions for reasons that quite often have nothing in common with considerations of industrial and economic problems of the unions. Trotzky is frank. He does not believe in workers’ preparedness to create communism, and through pain and suffering to seek, to blunder, and still create new forms of production. He has expressed this frankly and openly. He has already carried out his system of “club education” of the masses, and of their training for the role of “master” in the Central Administrative body of Railways by adopting all those methods of educating the masses which were practiced by our traditional journeymen upon their apprentices. It is true that a beating on the head by a boot-stretcher does not make an apprentice a successful shopkeeper after he becomes a journeyman, and yet as long as the boss-teacher’s stick hangs over his head he works and produces.
This, in Trotzky’s opinion, is the whole essence of shifting the central point “from politics to industrial problems.” To raise even temporarily productivity by every and all means is the whole crux of the task. Toward this end must be, in Trotzky’s opinion, also directed the whole course of training in the trade unions.
Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, however, disagree with him. They are “educators” of “a modern trend of thought.” It has been stated many a time that the trade unions are schools for communism. What does that mean – schools for communism? If we take this definition seriously, it will mean that in school for communism it is necessary first of all to teach and bring up, but not to command (this allusion to Trotzky’s views meets with applauses). Further on Zinovieff adds: the trade unions are performing a great task both for the proletarian and communist cause. This is the basic part to be played by the trade unions. At present, however, we forget this, and think that we may handle the problem of trade unions too recklessly, too roughly, too severely.
It is necessary to remember that these organizations have their own particular tasks – not of commanding, supervising or dictating, but tasks in which all may be reduced to one – “drawing of the working masses into the channel of the organized proletarian movement.” Thus, teacher Trotzky went too far in his system of bringing up the masses, but what does comrade Zinovieff himself propose? To give within the unions the first lessons in communism, “to teach them (the masses) the elementals of the proletarian movement.” How? “Through practical experience, through practical creation of the new forms of production (just what the opposition wants)? Not at all. Zinovieff-Lenin’s group favors a system of bringing up through reading, giving moral precepts and good, well chosen examples. We have 500,000 communists (among whom, we regret to say, there are many “strangers” – stragglers from the other world) to 7,000,000 workers.
According to comrade Lenin the party has drawn into itself “the proletarian vanguard,” and the best communists, in co-operation with specialists from the soviet economic institutions, are searching hard in their laboratories for the new forms of communist production. These communists working at present under the care of “good teachers” in the Supreme Council of National Economy or other centers, these Peters and Johns are the best pupils, it is true, but the working masses in the trade unions must look to these exemplary Peters and Johns and learn something from them without touching with their own- hands the rudder of control, for it is too early as yet as they have not learned enough.
In Lenin’s opinion, the trade unions, that is, the working class organizations, are not the creators of the communist forms of people’s economy for they serve only as a connecting link of the vanguard with the masses, – “the trade unions in their everyday work persuade masses, masses of that class ...” etc.
This is not Trotzky’s “club system,” not a medieval system of education. This is the Froebel-Pestalozzi’s German system founded on studying examples. Trade unions must do nothing vital in the industries, but to persuade masses, and keep the masses in touch with the vanguard, with the party, which (remember this!) does not organize production as a collective, but only creates the soviet economic institutions of a heterogeneous composition, and whereto it appoints communists.
Which system is better? – this is the question. Trotzky’s system, whatever it may be in other respects, is clearer, and, therefore, more real. On reading books and studying examples taken from good-hearted Peters and Johns one can not advance education too far. This must be remembered, and remembered well.
Bueharin’s group occupied the middle ground or, rather, attempts to coordinate both systems of bringing up; we must notice, however, that this also does not recognize the principle of independent creativeness of the unions in industry. In the opinion of Bucharin’s group the trade unions play a double role (so it is proclaimed in its theses); on one hand it (obviously “the role”) takes on itself the functions of a “school for communism,” and, on the other hand, the functions of an intermediary between the party and the masses (this is from Lenin’s group); it takes, in other words, the role of a machine injecting the wide proletarian masses into the active life (notice, comrades – “into the active life, but not into the creation of the new form of economy, and search for new forms of production). Besides that, they (obviously the unions) in ever increasing degree must become the component part both of the economic machine and the state authority. This is from Trotzky’s “joining together.”
The controversy again revolves not around the trade union problems, but around the methods of educating the masses by means of unions. Trotzky stands, or rather, stood for, a system which, with the help of that introduced among the railway workers, might hammer into the organized workers’ heads the wisdom of communist reconstruction, and by means of “appointees,” “shake-ups,” and all kinds of miraculous measures promulgated in conformity with “the shock system” could remake the unions so that they might join the soviet economic institutions by growth and become obedient tools in realizing economic plans worked out by the Supreme Council of National Economy.
Zinovieff and Lenin are not in a hurry to join the trade unions to the soviet economic machine. The unions, they say, shall remain unions. As regards production it will be run and managed by men whom we choose. When the trade unions have brought up obedient and industrious Peters and Johns we will “inject” them into the soviet economic institutions and thus the unions will gradually disappear, dissolve.
The creation of new forms of national economy we entrust to the soviet bureaucratic institutions; as to the unions we leave to them the role of “schools.” Education, education, and more education. Such is the Lenin-Zinovieff slogan. Bucharin, however, wanted “to bank” on radicalism in the system of union education, and, of course, fully merited the rebuke from Lenin together with the nickname of “Simidicomist.” Bucharin and his group, while emphasizing the educational part to be played by the unions in the present political situation, stand for the most complete workers’ democracy inside the unions, for wide elective powers to the unions – not only for the elective principle generally applied, but for non-conditional election of delegates nominated by the unions. Pray, what a democracy! This smacked of the very Opposition itself, if it were not for one difference. The Workers’ Opposition sees in the unions the managers, and creators of the communist economy whereas Bucharin together with Lenin and Trotzky leave to them only the role of “schools for communism,” and no more. Why should he not play with the elective principle when everybody knows that it will do no good or bad for the system of running the industry? For, as a matter of fact, the control over the industry will still remain outside the unions, beyond their reach, in the hands of the soviet institutions. Bucharin reminds us of those teachers who carry on education in conformity with the old system by means of “books.” – “You must learn that far, and no further” while encouraging “self-activity” of the pupils in organizing dances, entertainments, etc.
In this way the two systems quite comfortably live together, and square one with another. But what the outcome of all this will be, and what duties will the pupils of these teachers of eclectics be able to perform – this is a different question. If comrade Lunacharsky were to disapprove at all the educational meetings “eclectic heresy” like this the position of the People’s Commissariat on Education would be precarious, indeed.
However, there is no need to underestimate the educational methods of our leading comrades in regard to the trade unions. They all, Trotzky included, realize that in the matter of education “self-activity” of the masses is not the least factor. Therefore, they are in search of such a plan, where the trade unions without any harm to the prevailing bureaucratic system of running the industry, may develop their initiative and their economic creative powers. The least harmful sphere where the masses could manifest their self-activity as well as their “participation in active life” (according to Bucharin) is the sphere of betterment of the workers’ lot. The Workers’ Opposition pays a great deal of attention to this question, and yet it knows that the basic sphere of class creation is the creation of new industrial economic forms, of which the betterment of the workers’ lot is only a part.
In Trotzky and Zinovieff’s opinion the production must be created and adjusted by the soviet institutions while the trade unions are advised to perform a rather restricted, though useful, work of improving the lot of the workers. Comrade Zinovieff, for instance, sees in distribution of clothing the “economic role” of the unions and explains: “there is no other more important problem than that of economy; to repair one bath house in Petrograd at present is ten times more important than delivering five good lectures.”
What is this? A naive mistaken view, or a conscious substitution of organizing creative tasks in the sphere of production, and development of creative abilities by restricted tasks of home economics, house-hold duties, etc? In somewhat different language the same thought is expressed by Trotzky. He very generously proposes to the trade unions to develop the greatest initiative possible in the economic field.
But where shall this initiative express itself? In “putting glasses” in the shop window or filling up a pool in front of the factory (from Trotzky’s speech at the Miner’s Congress). Comrade Trotzky, take pity on us! For this is merely the sphere of “house-running,” and if you intend to reduce the creativeness of the unions to such a scope then the unions will become not schools for communism, but places where they train people for janitors. It is true that comrade Trotzky attempts to widen the scope of the “self-activity of the masses” by letting them participate not in an independent improvement of the workers’ lot, on the job (that far goes only the “insane” Workers’ Opposition), but by taking lessons from the Supreme Council of National Economy on this subject.
Whenever a question concerning workers is to be decided, as, for instance, about distribution of food or labor power, it, is necessary that the trade unions must know exactly (not participate themselves in the matter, but only know), not in general outline, as mere citizens, but know thoroughly the whole current work that is being done by the Supreme Council of National Economy (speech of Dec. 30th). The teachers from the Supreme Council of National Economy not only force the trade unions “to carry out” their plans, but they also “explain to their pupils their decrees.” This is already a step forward in comparison with the system that functions at present on the railways.
To every thinking worker it is clear, however, that putting in glasses, being as useful as it may, has nothing in common with running the industry. Productive forces and their development do not find expression in this work. The really Important question still is: how to develop them, how to build such a state of economy by squaring the new life with production, in order to eliminate the unproductive labor as much as possible. A party may bring up a red soldier, a political worker, or executive worker to carry out the projects already laid out, but it cannot develop a creator of communist economy, for only a union offers an opportunity for developing the creative abilities along new lines.
Moreover, this is not the task of the party. The party task is to create conditions, that is, give freedom to the working masses united by common economic industrial aims, so that they could bring up a worker-creator, find new impulses for work, could work out a new system to utilize labor power, and might know how to distribute workers in order to reconstruct society, and thus to create a new economic order of things founded on the communist basis. Only workers can generate in their mind new methods of organizing labor as well as running industry.
This is a simple Marxian truth, and yet at present the leaders of our party do not share it with us. Why? Just because they place more reliance on the bureaucratic technicians, descendants of the past, than in the healthy elemental class creativeness of the working masses. In every other sphere we may hesitate as to who is to be in the control – whether the workers’ collective or the bureaucratic specialists, be that in the matter of education, developing of science, organization of the army, care of public health, but there is one place, that of the economy, where ‘the question as to who shall have the control is very simple and clear for every one who has not forgotten history.
It is well known to every Marxian that reconstruction of industry and development of creative forces of a country depend on two factors: on the development of technique, and the efficient organization of labor by means of increasing productivity and finding new incentives to work. This has been true during every period of transformation from a lower stage of economic development to one higher throughout all the history of human existence.
In a labor republic the development of productive forces by means of technique plays a secondary role in comparison with the second factor, that of the efficient organization of labor, and creation of a new system of economy. Even if Soviet Russia succeeds in carrying out completely its project of general electrification without introducing any essential change in the system of control and organization of the people’s economy and production it would only catch up with the advanced capitalist countries in the matter of development.
Yet, in the efficient utilization of labor power and building up a new system of production Russian labor finds itself in exceptionally favorable circumstances, which give her the opportunity to leave far behind all the bourgeois’ capitalist countries in the matter of developing the productive forces. Unemployment as an incentive to labor in Soviet Russia has been done away with. Therefore, there are open new possibilities for the working class that had been freed from the yoke of capital, to say its own new creative word in finding new incentives to labor and creation of new forms of production which will have had no precedent in all human history.
Who can, however, develop the necessary creativeness and keenness in this sphere? Whether bureaucratic elements, heads of the soviet institutions or the industrial unions whose members in their experience in regrouping workers in the shop come across creative, useful, practical methods that can be applied in the process of reorganizing the entire system of the people’s economy? The Workers’ Opposition asserts that administration of the people’s economy is the trade unions’ job, and, therefore, it is more Marxian in thought than the theoretically trained leaders.
The Workers’ Opposition is not so ignorant as to wholly underestimate the great value of the technical progress or the usefulness of technically trained men. It does not, therefore, think that after electing its own body of control over the industry it may safely dismiss the Supreme Council of National Economy, the central industrial committees, economic centers, etc. Not at all. And yet the Workers’ Opposition thinks that it must assert its own control over these technically valuable administrative centers, give them theoretical tasks, and use their services as the capitalists did when they hired the technicians in order to carry out their own schemes. Specialists indeed can do valuable work in developing the industries; they can make the workers’ manual labor easier; they are necessary, indispensable as science is indispensable to every rising and developing class, but the bourgeois specialists, even with the communist label pasted on, are powerless physically and too weak mentally to develop productive forces in a non-capitalist state; to find new methods of labor organization, and develop new incentives for intensification of labor. In this, the last word belongs to the working class – to the industrial unions.
When the class of rising bourgeoisie, having reached the threshold leading from medieval to modem times, entered into the economic battle with the decaying class of feudal lords it did not possess any of the technical advantages over the latter. The trader – the first capitalist – was compelled to buy goods from that craftsman or journeyman who by means of hand files, knife and primitive spindles was producing goods both for his “master,” the landlord, and for the outside trader, with whom he entered into a “free” trade agreement. Feudal economy having reached a culminating point in its organization, ceased to give any surplus, and there began a decrease in the growth of productive forces; humanity stood face to face with an alternative of either economic decay or of finding new incentives for labor, of creating, consequently, a new economic system which would increase productivity, widen the scope of production, and open new possibilities for the development of productive forces.
Who could have found and evolved the new methods in the sphere of industrial reorganization? None, but those class representatives who had not been bound by the routine of the past, who understood that the spindle and cutter in the hands of a chattel slave produce incomparably less than in the hands of supposedly free hired workers behind whose back stands the incentive of economic necessity.
Thus, the rising class having found where the basic incentive to labor lies, has built on it a complex system great in its own way; the system of capitalist production. The technicians have come to the aid of capitalists only much later. The basis was the new system of labor organization, and the new relations that were established between capital and labor.
The same is true at present. No specialist or technician imbued with the routine of the capitalist system of production can ever introduce any new creative motive and vitalizing innovation into the fields of labor organization, in creating and adjusting the communist economy. Here the function belongs to the workers’ collective. The great service of the Workers’ Opposition is that it has put up this question of supreme importance frankly and openly before the party.
Comrade Lenin considers that we can put through the communist plan on the economic field by means of the party. Is it so? First of all let us consider how the party functions. According to comrade Lenin, “it attracts to itself the vanguard of workers”; then it scatters it over various soviet institutions (only a part of the vanguard gets back into the trade unions, where the communist members, however, are deprived of an opportunity of directing and building up the people’s economy). There these well trained, faithful, and, perhaps, very talented communist-economists disintegrate and decay in the general atmosphere of routine, which pervades all our soviet economic institutions. In such an atmosphere the influence of these comrades is weakened, marred or entirely lost.
Quite a different thing with the trade unions. There the class atmosphere is thicker, the composition of forces is more homogeneous, the tasks that the collective is faced with are more closely bound with the immediate life and labor needs of the producers themselves, of the members of factory and shop committees, of the factory management, and the unions’ centers. Creativeness, research of new forms for production, for new incentives to labor, in order to increase productivity, may be generated only in the bosom of this natural class collective. Only the vanguard of the class can create revolution, but only the whole class can create through everyday experience and practical work of its basic class collective.
Whoever does not believe in the creative spirit of a class collective – and this collective is most fully represented by the trade union – must put a cross over the communist reconstruction of society. Neither can Krestinsky or Preobrajensky nor Lenin and Trotzky push to the forefront by the means of their party machine, without a mistake, those workers who are able to find and point out new approaches to the new system of production. Such workers can be advanced only by life-experience itself from the ranks of those who actually produce and organize production at the same time.
Nevertheless, this consideration, very simple and clear to every practical man, is lost sight of by our party leaders. It is impossible to decree communism. In can be created only in the process of practical research, through mistakes, perhaps, but only by the creative powers of the working class itself.
The cardinal point of controversy that is taking place between the party leaders and the Workers’ Opposition is this: In whom will our party place the trust of building up the communist economy – in the Supreme Council of National Economy with all its bureaucratic branches or in the Industrial Unions? Comrade Trotzky wants “to join” the trade unions to the Supreme Council of People’s Economy so that with the assistance of the latter it might be possible to swallow the first. Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, on the other hand, want to “bring up” masses to such a level of communist understanding that they could be painlessly absorbed into the same soviet institutions. Bucharin and the rest of the factions express essentially the same view, and the variation consists only in the way they put it, the essence is the same. Only the Workers’ Opposition expresses something entirely different, defends the class proletarian viewpoint in the very process of creation and realization of its tasks.
The administrative economic body in the labor republic during the present transitory period must be a body directly elected by the producers themselves. All the rest of the administrative economic soviet institutions shall serve only as executive centers of the economic policy of that all-important economic body of the labor republic. All else is a goose-stepping that manifests distrust toward the creative abilities of workers, distrust which is not compatible with the professed ideals of our party whose very strength depends on the perennial revolutionary creative spirit of the proletariat.
There will be nothing surprising if at the approaching party congress the sponsors of the different economic reforms, save the single exception of the Workers’ Opposition, will come to a common understanding through mutual compromises and concessions since there is no essential controversy among them.
The Workers’ Opposition alone will not and must not compromise. This does not, however, mean that it “drives to a split.” Not at all. Its task is entirely different. Even in the event of defeat at the congress it must remain in the party, and step by step stubbornly defend its point of view, save the party, and clarify its class lines.
Once more in brief: what is it that the Workers’ Opposition wants?
Last updated on 1 February 2023