The quantitative growth of the Russian trades unions since the first Conference, notwithstanding the fact that the counter-revolution has snatched away a number of provinces (Siberia, Finland, the Donetz region, Caucasia, etc.), has resulted in a membership of 3,422,000 whereas only 2,500,000 members were represented at the First Conference. Thus, within one year the membership increased by almost one million. According to the All-Russian industrial groupings, the number of union members represented at the conference was distributed as follows:

Metal trades400,000
Tanners225,000
Members of Trade-Industrial Union (probably sales clerks)200,000
Workers engaged in the food industry140,000
Tailors150,000
Chemists80,000
Architectural and building trades120,000
Wood-working trades70,000
Printers60,000
Railroad workers450,000
Glass and chinaware workers24,000
Water transportation workers200,000
Postal-telegraphic employees100,000
Sugar industry100,000
Textile workers (according to data furnished by the local union)711,000
Firemen50,000
Oil miners and refiners30,000
Chauffeurs98,000
Bank employees70,000
Domestic help50,000
Waiters (in taverns)50,000
Cigar and cigarette makers30,000
Drug clerks14,000
Foresters5,000

According to the data furnished by the committee on credentials, there were 748 delegates at the Conference with the right to vote, and 131 with a voice. The political composition of the Conference (according to the results of an informal inquiry) was as follows: 374 Communists, 75 sympathizers, 15 Left Socialists-Revolutionists, 5 Anarchists, 18 Internationalists, 4 representatives of the Bund, 29 United Social-Democrats, 23 non-partisans, and 236 delegates did not state their party affiliations. The party registration bureaus showed entirely different results, which have been confirmed by the vote cast for the main resolutions. Thus, at the Communist bureau 600 persons have registered (this includes party members having the right to vote, sympathizers, and people with a voice only, but no vote), the Internationalists had 50 persons, and the United Social-Democrats had 70.

Geographically the delegates were represented as follows:

SecondFirst
From UnionsConferenceConference
The Northern Region100delegates69delegates
The Central Region320"112"
The Volga Region144"25"
The Ural Region2"13"
The Southern Region31"62"
The Western Region30".."
From Soviets and Northern Region29"
Central Region70"
Ural Region3"
Southern Region6"
Western Region14"
Volga Region30"

The local Soviets of the Professional Unions were represented according to regions, as follows:

Central Region36 cities1,004,500 persons
Northern Region16 cities396,000 persons
Volga Region19 cities499,300 persons
Western Region7 cities73,800 persons
Southern Region4 cities64,000 persons
———————————————
Total82 cities2,037,600 persons
At the preceding Conference49 cities1,888,353 persons

From June 16th to 25th, 1919, during the nine days of its work, the second All-Russian Congress of Trades Unions solved the fundamental questions of the Russian professional (trades union) movement. The Conference more precisely defined the place of the professional trades unions in a proletarian state, it has more concretely outlined the interrelations of the trades unions with the organs of administration and, above all, with the People’s Commissariat of Labor. All other questions, such as the regulation of working hours and wages, the safeguarding of labor and the social insurance of laborers, the organization of production, and workmen’s control have been solved on the basis of the experience of the past year.

The Russian professional unions entered upon a new era of proletarian activity. And the unions are already facing practical problems—to put into practice the principles and resolutions adopted and in all phases of its work to follow one direction, that of still further strengthening its power, and participating more closely in establishing the might of proletarian Russia.

THE PROBLEMS OF THE PROFESSIONAL TRADES UNIONS