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The First All-Russian Congress of trade unions open in Petrograd
The first All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions opened 7 (20) January 1918, in Petrograd.
The trade union movement in Russia began in the period of the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907. A prerequisite for this process was the development of an organized workers' struggle for better working conditions and economic situation. With the growth of industry and production concentration, the number of strikes and their participants increased, the experience of organizations which united employees, such as societies and mutual aid funds, strike funds and committees, illegal workers unions, etc. accumulated. After the events of 9 (22) January 1905, workers' organizations were established in all industries.
In early October 1905, in Moscow, the 1st All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions took place. At the conference there were created regional inter-union authorities – the Central Bureau of Trade Unions, designed to coordinate the activities of industrial and craft unions, as well as other workers' organizations. The Manifesto of 17 (30) October 1905 proclaimed civil liberties, including freedom of association and assembly, which led to an immediate increase in the number of labor unions. In the period of reaction that followed the year of 1907, the majority of professional organizations were closed, the opening of new ones was forbidden. Labor unions went underground.
A new stage in the development of trade union movement began after the February Revolution of 1917. In June 1917, the III All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions took place. It elected a temporary Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, tasked with liaising between unions, provision of assistance to them and preparation of the 1st Congress of Trade Unions.
First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions was launched 7 (20) January 1918, in Petrograd, in the new historical and political context, under the dictatorship of proletariat.
The congress was attended by 416 delegates with deciding vote and by 75 with advisory vote. There were 273 Bolsheviks, 66 Mensheviks, 34 nonparty men, 21 Left SRs, 10 Right SRs, 6 anarchist –syndicalists and 6 maximalists. Deputies from 162 trade unions and 19 All-Russian associations represented more than 2.6 million members of trade unions of workers and employees. Among those organizations which did not send their representatives were the unions of railroad workers, miners, doctors, postal workers, printers and some local trade union organizations influenced by the Mensheviks and SRs.
A report on the activities of the interim All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions was made by the secretary of the council S. A. Lozovsky. The keynote speech "On the Current Situation" was made by G. E. Zinoviev. Also on the agenda of the Congress there were questions about the immediate tasks of the trade union movement, the regulation of industry and workers' control, the demilitarization of the industry, about the relationship between trade unions and factory committees, unemployment, institution building and the charter of the All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions.
The congress was an arena of struggle between two major parties - the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks - in addressing critical issues about the nature of the relationship between unions and the government, the forms of participation of unions in the construction of economic life. In the preface to a verbatim record of the Congress M. P. Tomsky wrote: "Two different understandings of the course of development and problems of the Russian revolution, as well as of trade unions, most clearly affected this cardinal question.
Should the trade unions link their fate with the fate of the Soviet regime or should they remain independent bodies of economic class struggle, like in the conventional framework of the bourgeois state?" The Bolsheviks, supported by the Left SRs, the SRs "maximalists" and anarcho-syndicalists, put forward the idea of gradual transformation of trade unions in public authorities, condemned the idea of trade unions’ neutrality. Mensheviks, united with the Right SRs, were under the slogan of "unity and independence of the trade union movement."
In its resolutions the Congress approved the principle of creation of trade unions and outlined a program of their activities; formulated new challenges, the main of which were demilitarization of industry and restoration of productive forces of the country, organization of the entire national economy, proper distribution of the workforce effective operating control. Delegates also decided to merger factory committees and trade unions in terms of organization. There were also elected the new members of the All-Russian Conference of Trade Unions and formed its working body - the Executive Committee, which consisted of 7 Bolsheviks, 3 Mensheviks and one Left SR.
14 (27) January the Congress completed its work.
Lit.: История профсоюзов России: этапы, события, люди. М., 1999; Левинская М. С., Марков И. П. Первый Всероссийский съезд профсоюзов. М.,1958; Носач В. И. Профессиональные союзы России (1905-1930). СПб., 2001; Носач В. И. Профсоюзы России: драматические уроки 1917-1921 гг. СПб., 2001.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: