CHAPTER VI.
SHOULD REVOLUTIONARIES WORK IN REACTIONARY TRADE UNIONS?
The German "Left" consider the reply to this question to be decidedly in the negative so far as they are concerned. According to their opinion, mere declamations and angry ejaculations (as done by K. Horner in a particularly "solid" and stupid manner) against "reactionary" and "counter-revolutionary" Trade Unions are sufficient to prove that it is not only useless but also not permissible for revolutionaries and Communists to work in the yellow, social-chauvinist, temporizing and conservative organization of the type of the Legien Unions. But, however strongly the German "Left" may be convinced of the revolutionary nature of such tactics, these are in reality fundamentally wrong, and contain nothing but empty phrases.
In order to explain this, I shall begin with our own experience, in so far as it coincides with the general scheme of the present article, the aim of which is to apply to Western Europe everything that is of general significance in the history and the present tactics of Bolshevism.
The relation between leaders, party, class, masses, and at the same time the relation of the proletarian dictatorship and its Party to the Trade Unions, present themselves to us in the following concrete form. The dictatorship of the proletariat is carried out by the proletariat organized in Soviets, which is led by the Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which, according to the data of the last party Conference, in April, 1920, has 611,000 members. The number of members varied greatly both before and after the October Revolution, and was considerably less even in 1918 and 1919. We are afraid of too
