Lenin and the Trade Unions.
THE trade union movement also is very much indebted to Lenin.
First of all because he has determined the correct place to be occupied by the trade unions in the class struggle. He fought very bitterly all those in the trade unions of Europe that favored the existence of the trade unions as perfectly independent organizations from the political party of the proletariat. He proved in a number of cases that this idea of the independence of the unions from the political movement of the proletariat in reality means independence from revolutionary class politics, that the anarchists and reformists by preaching the idea of the independence of the trade unions are merely serving the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Lenin looked upon the trade unions as the elementary units of working class organization, "as the place where the masses are trained in organization, in collective management, and in Communism." He was at one and the same time opposed to over-estimating as well as under-estimating the importance of trade unions. He always insisted upon the necessity of taking part in these mass organizations, irrespective of the nature of their leadership. In his book "The Infantile Sicknesses of Communism," in the chapter entitled, "Shall Revolutionaries Participate in Reactionary Trade Unions?" he criticizes very energetically those Communist elements which at the first onslaught of the reactionary bureaucracy become pessimistic and throw out the slogan of: "Out of the Trade Unions, an immediate split." Such tactics he designates as: "Unpardonable stupidity which is equivalent to offering the greatest service to the bourgeoisie." He says: "We must work wherever the masses are, criticize mercilessly the labor aristocracy which is dominated by reformism, narrow craft egotism, and the ideas of bourgeois imperialism." Lenin would emphasize time and again that without the trade unions the Soviet Government could not have maintained itself in power for more than two weeks. The trade unions are the connecting link between the masses and the proletarian vanguard. It is only by our daily activities that we can convince the masses that it is only we who are capable of leading them from capitalism to Communism.
The development of the revolutionary trade union movement followed that of the Communist movement. The Russian trade union movement was to the Red International of Labor Unions of the same importance as the Communist Party of
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