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"The October Revolution, which transferred the power from the bourgeoisie to the workers and poor peasants, has created entirely new conditions for all the workers' organisations, and especially for the Industrial Unions.
"Under the changed conditions, the industrial organisation can no longer be regarded as the advance guard of the fight put up by the worker in selling himself to the employer. The employer who used to buy labour power of old, exists no more. It is no longer necessary for the Unions to collect strike funds or to organise strikes."
The Present Functions of Russian Trade
Unions.
What are the real functions of the industrial organisations in Russia to-day?
The same resolution of the First All- Russian Congress of Industrial Unions says on this point:—
"The Unions must now transfer their centre of gravity to economic reconstruction."
To explain what an industrial organisation really is under the conditions now obtaining in Russia, one is first obliged to make clear that:—
"An Industrial Union in Russia to-day is a permanent union of all the workers in a given industry; it represents one of the principal bases of the organisation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
"The Industrial Union to-day (under the guidance of the Communist Party) transfers its centre of gravity to the domain of economic organisation, by making its aim an energetic participation in all the efforts of the workers for a Communist reconstruction of society and for the abolition of social classes. This participation takes the following forms:—
