ernmental attitude toward the trade unions had destroyed the interest of the toilers in the economic reconstruction of the country and paralysed their productive capacity. They emphasized that the October Revolution had been fought to put the proletariat in control of the industrial life of the country. They demanded the liberation of the masses from the yoke of the bureaucratic State and its corrupt officialdom and opportunity for the exercise of the creative energies of the workers. The Labour Opposition voiced the discontent and aspirations of the rank and file.
It was a battle royal, with Trotsky and Zinoviev chasing each other over the country in separate special trains, to disprove each other's contentions. In Petrograd, for instance, Zinoviev's influence was so powerful that it required a big struggle before Trotsky received permission to address the Communist Local on his views in the controversy. The latter engendered intense feeling and for a time threatened to disrupt the Party.
At the Congress, Lenin denounced the Labour Opposition as "anarcho-syndicalist, middle-class ideology" and advocated its entire suppression. Schliapnikov, one of the most influential leaders
