(A resolution introduced by M. Tomsky)
One year of political and economic dictatorship of the proletariat and the growth of the workers’ revolution the world over, have fully borne out the correctness of the position taken by the first All-Russian Conference of the Professional Trades Unions, who have unconditionally bound up the fate of the economically organized proletariat with that of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.
The attempt, under the flag of “unity” and “independence” of the trades union movement, to pit the economically organized proletariat against the organs of the political dictatorship of its own class, has led the groups which were supporting this slogan, to an open struggle against the Soviet Government and has placed them outside the ranks of the working class.
In the course of the practical cooperation with the Soviet Government in the work for the strengthening and organization of the nation’s economic life, the professional trades unions have passed from control over industry to organization of industry, taking an active part in the management of individual enterprises as well as in the entire economic life of the country.
But the task of nationalization of all the means of production and the organization of society on the new principles of Socialism demands persistent and careful labor involving the reconstruction of the entire governmental apparatus, the creation of new organs of control, and regulation of production and distribution, based on the organization and activity of the laboring masses who are themselves directly interested in the results.
This makes it imperative for the trades unions to take a more active and energetic part in the work of the Soviet Government (through direct participation in all governmental institutions, through the organization of proletarian mass control over their actions, and the carrying out, by means of their organization, of individual problems with which the Soviet Government is confronted), to aid in the reconstruction of various governmental institutions and in the gradual replacement of the same by their own organizations by amalgamating the unions with the governmental institutions.
However, it would be a mistake at the given stage of development of the professional trades union movement with the insufficiently developed organization to convert immediately the unions into governmental organs and to amalgamate the two organizations as well as for the unions to usurp of their own accord the functions of governmental institutions.
The entire process of complete amalgamation of the professional unions with the organs of government administration must come as an absolutely inevitable result of their work, in complete and close cooperation and harmony and the preparation of the laboring masses, for the task of managing the governmental apparatus and all the institutions for the regulation of the country’s economic life.
This, in its turn, places before the unions the problem of welding together the as yet unorganized proletarian and semi-proletarian masses into strong productive unions, initiating them, under the control of the proletarian unions, into the task of social reconstruction and the general work of strengthening their organizations, as regards centralization and smoothly working unions as well as the strengthening of professional discipline.
Directly participating in all fields of Soviet work, forming and supplying the man-power for the governmental institutions, the professional unions must, through this work for which they must enlist their own organizations as well as the laboring masses, educate and prepare them for the task of managing not only production but the entire apparatus of government.