THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF TRADE UNIONISM

I. Confusion. 11. Defence.

111. Politics. IV. Syndicalism.

VI. Unionism under Communism. V. Unionism: The Product of Industrial Capitalism.

Trade Unionism, up t o the present, has played out a five act drama on the social stage. For those who so desire there can be a prologue spoken by the journeymen guilds from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. For it is they, and not the craft guilds, who are the forerunners of Trade Unionism. This prologue spoken, the curtain rolls up somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth century and the first act lasts for a hundred years. I t bristles with all sorts of exciting events- the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Peterloo massacres, the Dorchester Labourers, and the Chartist riots. But all these are played out against the background of the coming of Great Industry in Britain. Among the chief actors are Cobbett, Francis Place, Robert Owen, Lovett and 0 'Connor. Off stage you can hear the voices of Lord Shaftesbury, Oastler and Robert Peel.

I The increasing

development of urbanization due to the growth of the Factory System j the wind of revolutionary doctrines from France; and the war conditions existing from 1789-1815, with their inevitable reactions. On the whole the period of the first act was one of gradually rising protest from the workers. The growing tendency to working class organization was suddenly and brutally checked by the Acts of 1799-1800, which made Trade Unionism illegal and drove it underground for twenty- five years. The immediate post-war years found William Cobbett campaigning up and down the country in a righteous, but ill-conceived, endeavour to put back the clock of industrial- ism. With the repeal of the Anti-Combination Laws in 1824-5, largely due to the work of Francis Place, Trade Unionism became legal again and indulged in a wild orgy of protest, which came to a head in-the revolutionary One Big Union of the thirties a t the head of which stood Robert Owen-

Three influences affected this first period.

16

J U N E 1934 TRADE UNIONISM 1.7

ex-capitalist manufacturer. Born out of due time, this attempt to wield the industrial weapon of revolutionary unionism failed entirely. Diisappointed at this failure, the workers turned to pick up the political weapon of Chartism, in order to emphasize their protest against the effects of the new industrialism. V e must never forget that Chartism, though a political movement in form, was in reality based on economic distress. I t s political programme was merely a weapon with which to overcome that distress. To picture it, as do many historical text books, merely as a movement for political reform is to miss its essential significance. As a movement Chartism failed with the fiasco of 1848, and the period ends with the apparent defeat of the working class movement.

The failure was the failure to overturn the new industrialism, the failure of those who did not recognize that industrial capitalism had come to stay. That was the tragedy of Cobbett. H e saw the dispossession of the agricultural workers and his remedy was to get back to the land, to establish a peasant proprietary, to restore the English countr;yside as he had known it in his boyhood. Even Owen, who understood the causes of working class misery far better than Cobbett, had always at the back of his mind co-operative communities which should be settled on the land. And the Chartists themselves mixed up land nationalization with po1itica;l reform. Take Feargus 0 ’Connor. His Land Scheme was an appeal t o the land hunger of a discontented urban proletariat. Thousands of workers sent in their saved pennies to the tune of S90,OOO to found the model settlement of 0 ’Connorville and support the National Land Company. This company failed and the subscribers lost their money. But was O’Connor downhearted ? Not a bit !

A parliamentary committee in 1847 examined the scheme and recommended winding up the company; but it acquitted O’Connor of personal dishonesty. O’Connor relying on this acquittal addresesd a huge audience of subscribers a t Manchester. He began with some rare, mouth-filling stuff about “villains who quaff your sweat, gnaw your flesh and drink the blood of infants”. Then he went on t o ask whether they thought he was the kind of man who would “crush the little bones of their little children, lap up their young blood, luxuriate on women’s misery and grow fat on the labourer’s toil”. FinaIIy he anounced that he intended t o pay twenty shillings in the &1 t o all shareholders. “I have now,’’ he said, “brought

But the defeat was more apparent than real.

B

18 THE ECONOMIC RECORD JUNE

money with me to repay every shareholder in Manchester”. (Shouts of “Nay, but we won’t have it”.) “Well, then, I will spend it all.” (More shouts of “DO, and be welcome to it”.) . . . Plainly it was O’Connor whom the New South Wales Government needed to deal with the run which closed the doors of the Government Savings Bank.

I1 With the collapse of the Chartist movement came the end

of this “back-to-the-land” phase. The workers accepted Industrial Capitalism and they realized that the industrial clock could not be put back a t the behest of distressed handloom weavers, and agricultural labourers with their mental roots in a superseded peasant economy. Once this was realized, a great step forward was made. The workers turned their faces in a new direction, and, in so doing, they turned their backs on the countryside and took stock of their position as townsmen-i.e., as a part of a new social order whose conditions dictated that large masses of the population should live and work in towns, for wages, a t factories. The town and the factory were no longer unfamiliar and terrifying. A new generation of urban workers had grown up who had never known the open-air life of the fields, who had never touched their hats to the Squire, nor even burnt his hayricks to express their disapproval of his enclosures and the wages he paid. This meant the passing of leaders like Cobbett and O’Connor who proposed to restore the land to the workers. Future leaders of the Labour Movement would have to work within the existing order of things. That is to say they would have to accept Industrialism, they would even have to accept Capitalism, and work out their salvation with the weapons a t hand.

The weapon they chose was Trade Unionism, and with that choice the working class movement passes into its second phase, which extends from about 1850 to the ’eighties. The second act had begun.

This was a period of Toleration. Labour accepted Capitalism as the basis of the social order. Now an age of toleration means an age of moderation, of sweet reasonableness. So Labour left off revolting against Capitalism, and passed to the task of organizing within Capitalism. It took to business unionism instead of revolutionary unionism. It made up its mind to accept Capitalism, although it was not strong enough to control it very effectively. What control it achieved was the

1934 TRADE UNIONISM 19

result of fights for better wages, better conditions and better hours, and for the right to organize.

This is the period of the famous Junta-that group of five, eminently respectable, working class administrators who became the interpreters of Trade Unionism to the British public. They compel the admiration of Mr. Sidney Webb. “ In them,” he says, ‘ ‘the traducers of !l!rade Unionism found themselves confronted with a combination of high personal character, exceptional business capacity and a large share of that official decorum which the English middle class finds so impressive”. Here one might imagine was “ a Junta in whom there was no guile”, but one would be mistaken, because this Junta included the General Secretary of the London Ironfounders, whose name was Daniel Guile.

The “new model” policy laid down by the Junta dominated English Trade Unionism until the 1880’s. It saw in Unionism only a weapon of defence against Capitalism. No longer was the Trade Union movement to be regarded as an envine for overturning the Capitalist order, after the fashion of Owen. It was to be a breastwork, erected within the Capitalist order, behind which the workers might shelter. “Defence not Defiance” as the Union banner of the day began to proclaim.

As the policy developed three characteristics of this phase of Unionism became apparent : (1) It was, so far, confined to the skilled artisans-the so-called aristocracy of labour. In this respect, i t was akin to the outlook of the American Federation of Labour to-day, (2) It worked exclusively on the industrial field, laying aside the political weapon. (3 ) It was exceedingly self-centred, having little or nothing to do with contemporary workers’ movements in Europe. In this, of course, it reflected the attitude of its countrymen who, a t that time, gloried in their splendid isolation from continental entanglements. Such as it was, however, Unionism represented the organised Labour Movement. Indeed, as Cole says, ‘‘until there are Trade Unions there is no Labour Movement”. And that is as true of Australia, in our experience, as it is of Britain.

I11 But in the ’eighties the Trade Union Movement itself began

to change, and this change introduced the third act of the drama, which might be labelled “Trade Unionism Takes to Politics”. The tendency of the Trade Union leaders since the ’fifties had been, as we have seen, to accept Capitalism. From

20 THE ECONOMIC RECORD J U N E

this had arisen a disposition to work with, and not against, the employers. Indeed there was a growing assumption that the interests of Capital and Labour were identical. This lqeant concilation rather than strikes ; ivork on the industrial, rather than on the political field; craft unions with friendly benefits, rather than fighting unions with strike pay.

This general position began to be challenged from two quarters. (1) From within the movement came a surge of amalgamations and consolidations into industrial unions--the United Textile Workers (1886), the General Labourers Union (1887), the Miners Federation (1888). The leaders of this new tendency were men like Keir Hardie, Ben Tillett, Tom Mann and John Burns, who were ready for action on the political as well as the industrial field, and who preached a more militant form of industrial action than the old leaders had been willing to countenance.

The second challenge came from outside the Trade Union Movement, and it came from the revived gospel of Socialism. I n Germany and France the Socialist Movement was beginning to lift its head after the Paris Commune of 1871, and the working class parties, though Marxian in outlook, stood for parliamentary action and public ownership. In 1879 Henry George published “Progress and Poverty”, and in 1881 H. M. Hyndman formed in London what afterwards became the Social Democratic Federation. This latter body became violently political in aim. It put up two Socialist candidates a t the General Election of 1885. The trade slump from 1883-1886, in which unemployment rose from 2% to l o % , helped the Social Democratic Federation. The new body denounced the policy of the old Trade Union leaders, and urged its members to join Unions and work from inside to convert them to Socialism. So the gospel of “white-anting” is not so modern after all.

But the Socialism to which the Trade Union Movement became converted was not the continental Socialism of Marxian outlook. It was a British product. It seized on the evolutionary note in Marxism, and it developed that, substituting for the historical inevitability of Marx the ethical appeal that goes back to John Stuart Mill, Thomas More, and Plato. The intellectual basis of this British Socialism came largely from the Fabian Society. The Fabians were Marxian enough to believe that Socialism must come, but they were more intent on working out the ground plan of the new order, than in stirring u p the class

TRADE UNIONISM 1934 21

struggle. These Fabians .were few in number but of high intellectual quality. Imagine a society which included Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Bernard Shaw, and Graham Wallas.

Yet something more than the brilliance of these middle- class intellectuals was needed t o move the Trade Union Move- ment. That needed an emotional dynamic. And this came from the Independent Labour Party, founded in 1893, and organized and led by Keir Hardie. Its Socialism was of the broad human type, ethical as well as economic, but not very clear as to its doctrine. The Fabians provided the I.L.P. with a doctrine and a policy. The doctrine was collectivism, the policy was not t o wait for the Revolution but t o begin now with piecemeal nationalization, to capture municipal councils, and t o begin t o experiment with socialized municipal services-gas-and-water socialism their critics con- temptuously called it.

The Fabians were the brain anld the I.L.P. was the heart of this new Socialism. It wanted the control of industry by the State, by which it meant the whole body of the people organized through parliament. These new Socialists had little difficulty in persuading the Trade Union Movement to this point of view -especially the left wing O C the new big amalgamations. The climax of this policy, which was maturing all through the nine- ties, occurred in 1899, when the Trade Union Congress resolved to call a conference of representatives from the Trade Union Congress and from the three Socialist societies-the Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party, and the Fabians. This conference had to steer between the old Unionists, who wanted to limit the new group to industrial questions, leaving Labour politicians to take their own line in parliament, and the Social Democratic Federation who wanted a political party with a straight-out Socialist platform. In the end a compromise was effected. A. Labour Representation Committee was formed in order to establish a distinct group in parlia- ment which should have its own whips, agree upon its own policy, and abstain strictly from identifying itself with the older parties, although being ready to co-operate with either of them to promote legislation in the interests of Labour. At the next election two candidates representing the Labour Repre- sentation Committee were returned.

This was a working class body.

Thus the Fabians and the I.L.P. fitted in very well.

22 THE ECONOMIC RECORD J U N E

Anyone who knows the history of the political Labour Movement in New South Wales in the nineties, will understand that the English Movement was passing through a similar phase of development. Put shortly, the parliamentary policy that was hammered out in both countries was twofold-the maintenance of distinct identity and “support in return for concessions”. So fa r there had been no general levy on the members of the Trade Unions, and there was no explicit declaration of Socialist faitli. But the campaign for direct Labour representation had begun, and it was based on the Trade Unions.

A t this stage (1900) the political Labour Movement re- ceived a tremendous impetus from the Taff Vale Case. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants lost S42,OOO over this action, and the Trade Unions lost the power of calling strikes for fear lest their capital fund would be imperilled by judgments for damages being given against their members. This was a disability that might be remedied by political action. The group of two Labour Representation Committee candidates which had been elected in 1901-Keir Hardie and Richard Bell -grew to five through bye-elections, and, in the election of 1906, twenty-nine candidates were returned from the fifty-one nominated. The Labour Representation Committee became, in name and fact, the Labour party; as the elected representatives of the miners and railway men in parliament joined forces with it. Almost immediately the Taff Vale Decision was reversed by the Trades Dispute Act of 1906. Here was a triumphant demonstration of the value of the political veapon. Another was the nullification of the famous Osborne Judgment of 1908 by the Trade Union Act of 1913 ; yet another, the intro- duction of payment of members in 1910.

We can let the curtain down on the third act a t this point, 1906, but I am going to crave the license of the dramatist to begin the fourth act a little earlier. For the theme of this fourth act is a decided swing from parliamentary action and a chorus of exhortations to the Unions to confine their work to the industrial field.

rv While the Labour party in Parliament was improving the

defences of the workers in alliance with the Liberals of Lloyd George, the rank and file began a movement of impatience. Why should everything be slowed down to the pace of the poli- tical movement? Direct action could be successful. Look at

TRADE UNIONISM 1934 23

the Dock Strike in 1889. There was the same kind of revolt of the industrial wing in Australia. By this is meant, not merely the objection t o the domination of the political movement by the people whose labourism was a matter of opinion rather than a matter of status, but the tendency to return to industrial action after disappointment in the political field. This was exemplified by the Tramway Strike in Brisbane in 1912, and, later, by the so-called General Strike of 1917 in Sydney.

This rising tide of discontent was swelled a t the beginning of the century by currents from abroad. From France came the doctrine of Syndicalism. The French trade unions, never encumbered by friendly benefits, were f a r more inclined to militancy than were the British unions. They were much better fitted in this respect to skirmish against the less solidly organized capitalism of French employers. In this soil Syndicalism grew quickly. Moreover its doctrines had a verve that appealed t o the Latin temperament. “Strike ! gentlemen, strike ! and be damned to the day after next.” The new society would pass into the control of the workers who would control it directly without any intenvention from parliaments, in which so-called Socialists like Briand and hlillerand sat cheek by jowl with employers in cabinets. Syndicalism was essentially a philo- sophy of action. Planning for the reconstructed society was not its strong point. The State would pass away. Control would pass to the producers. The miners would own and work the mines; the agricultural workers would own and work the land. It mould all be managed through regional groups. As for those affairs that needed central direction-let there be a Producers’ Congress, which would in time become a world vide General Council of Producers. This localism, together with the urge t o Direct Action, reflected the Anarchist element in Syndicalism.

Another current of doctrine came from the United States. There revolutionary unionism took a different form. The unskilled polyglot proletariat could see no hope of betterment from the aristocratic Federation of Labour. There was no political labour party in existence. Not through Craft Unions of the American Federation of Labour type, nor through politics mould come the emancipation of the workers. The unskilled must organize for themselves on the industrial field. Their ideal was a mass organization of workers in all industries tmited in One Big Union, based on direct antagonism to employers and preaching the class mar. No localism here. This

24 T H E ECONORIIC RECORD J U N E

was the philosophy of the I.W.W., both in its violent Chicago form, and in its less violent Detroit form. Like the French movement it paid more attention t o tactics than to long range planning. It took more pains to describe Sabotage than to devise the groundwork of the new social order it sought to bring about.

In line with their times, they were more inclined t o trust instinctive urges and to hope that something satisfactory would turn up in the long run. Australia felt the force of the American rather than the French current, and there was a period in which we heard a good deal of the Sab Cat, and Australian workers were urged t o choose a new revolutionary anthem-either “Keep the home fires burning” o r “Hallelujah I’m a Bum”.

But this industrial RIicawberism conquered neither Britain nor Australia. It influenced the Trade Union Movement in the direction of Industrial rather than Craft Unionism; it helped towards the emergence of the British National Transport Workers’ Federation in 1910; it inspired several weekly jour- nals; and it was no doubt partly responsible for the wave of British strikes in the years 1911-191A-the Seamen’s, the Rail- waymen’s and the Miners’ as well as the Larkinism of Dublin in 1913.

In Britain it also helped the emergence of Guild Socialism. The aims of Guild Socialism were just as revolutionary as those of Syndicalism. Like Syndicalism, it wanted to group men as producers, and it criticized Collectivism and the Collectivist State. But it did not totally neglect politics nor nationality. Its Guilds, like the Syndicalist groups, were to operate the means of production, but not to own them. They were to be leased from the State. Recognizing the State, they also recog- nized politics. The guildsmen even envisaged two parliaments -an industrial parliament on the Soviet model, made up of representatives from each socialized industry ; and a political parliament made up of representatives of the consumers grouped according to locality, in the same fashion as existing parlia- ments. Over the relationship of these two parliaments a lo t of ink was spilt in the years 1918-1924. Latterly the Guild School concentrated on what it called self-government in indus- try. It foresaw the difficulty of handing over any socialized industry to the ordinalry Civil Service administration, and wanted to give each socialized industry its own appropriate functional government, composed of, or representative of, the

Both these philosophies distrusted intellectualism.

1934 TRADE UNIONISM 25

workers in that industry. The influence of this par t of Guild propaganda can be traced in the modern tendency to urge that each socialized industry should be placed under a special com- mission or board, representative of the interests served by that industry.

It is possible that another result of this Guild propaganda can be seen in the so-called Weimar Constitution under which post-war Germany was organized. But the ideas of Sidney Webb, who was not of the Guild School, had a great deal of influence on the framers of this Constitution. This scheme provided for a kind of industrial parliament of producers, sitting jointly with the political parliament. This is the scheme which Herr Hitler has recently overthrown.

These observations have taken us somewhat beyond the period at which I proposed to lower the curtain on the fourth act of the Trade Union Drama, i.e., 1918. The Trade Union world had not digested either Syndicalism or Guild Socialism when the war broke out. F'or the next four years these philo- sophies were debated but without much practical effect. Wage rates moved upward. Strikes were few and small. But, by 1918, war weariness, distrust of the war aims of governments, conscription and the Russian Revolution combined to stir up a more critical attitude in the ranks of Trade Unionism.

The last act, for our purpose, extends from 1918 to the present day. It can be briefly sketched. A short period of boom is succeeded, in 1921, by a depression from which Australia recovered quickly, but Britain did not. The Guild movement in Britain received much impetus from the success of the Building Guilds in 1920-22. But these collapsed when the Government revised its housing policy, and thus left the Guilds without the means to carry on. Labour governments in Aus- tralia began t o come back to power, and organized labour based its hopes once more on political action. In 1924 the first British Labour Government was formed, dependent on Liberal support. But in 1924 there was an anti-labour reaction in politics, and the Trade Union movement turned again t o indus- trial action in order to combat the effects of the long depression. One result of this was the general strike of 1926, called by the Trade Union Congress on May 4th, called off on May 12th, and ending in collapse.

The British General strike illustrated the extreme diffi- culty of organizing and running a nation-wide protest of this kind. It demands more effective staff work than the organized

26 THE ECONOMIC RECORD J U N E

Trade Union movement has yet achieved. In particular no satisfactory way has been devised of dealing with the exaspera- tion of the general public, outside the ranks of the Trade Union movement. Deprived of its accustomed conveniences-trams, buses, gas and newspapers-this' section of the community is apt to turn against the agencies it believes to be responsible for these deprivations. But this particular General Strike mas not regarded by its organizers as an attempt to overthrow the industrial system. It was not a challenge to the State, though the government of the day persisted in asserting that it was revolutionary. It was a weapon of defence, an attempt to defend Labour's position inside Capitalism. Whether it was well advised is another question. No General Strike has hitherto succeeded, which suggests that perhaps the syndicalist Sore1 was right in his view of the General Strike as a myth, a n intoxicating symbol which should be used to inspire men to act, but which should not be actually attempted.

Let us attempt to gather up the threads. What has been the role of Trade Unionism during the past 150 years? Or rather, what have been the changing roles of Trade Unionism during that period?

We have now come down t o 1926.

V Up to the time of its suppression in 1799, Trade Unionism

mas obviously a means of defence for the workers against any lowering of their standards. With liberation in 1825, the Trade Union movement entered a revolutionary phase and became definitely a weapon of protest against the existing order. This phase passed in 1848, and the nest period (1850-1880) exhibits Unionism again as a Defence. It accepts the existing order and works within that order to better its position. In all these periods so far, action has been undertaken exclusively on the industrial field. In the nest period (1880-1906) Trade Unionism, without discarding the industrial weapon, begins to pick up the political weapon as well. The note of protest against the existing order reappears in the form of socialist criticism, but the goal of political action becomes change by evolutionary means-peaceful piecemeal socialism-political gradualism as it is called. In reaction against this came the revolutionary industrial temper of 1900-1914, when the Trade Union world flirted with Syndicalism and Guild Socialism, avoiding, however, any matrimonial compromise. The post war period shows, as might be expected, Trade Unionism standing

1934 TRADE UNIONISM 27

on the defensive for the most part, even the much quoted general strike being a defensive tactie rather than an offensive against the existing system. The note of protest is, in fact, heard much more loudly in the political than in the industrial field.

(1) Trade Unionism has alternated between periods of defence and periods of pro- test. ( 2 ) It has also alternated between political and industrial action. But these two sets of alternations do not themselves correspond. We cannot say that revolutionary aims emerge when the movement directs itself t o industrial action. Nor can we claim that political action issues always in a phase of defence rather than defiance.

Leaving aside the ,questions of methods or weapons, we can say that, historically, the function of Trade Unionism has been t o defend the v-orkers under Capitalism and, a t times, to protest against Capitalism and agitate t o change it. This raises the interesting question whether Trade Unionism is to be regarded as a product of the existing system. When a man begins to swing a pick and wield an axe after a long spell of office work, the skin of his hands protests, and its protests take the form of blisters, and, later, of corns which protect his skin from friction. Is Trade Unionism like this-an automatic defence mechanism thrown up by the social body to meet the frictions engendered in the present social system? We have seen that, in the past, Trade Unionism has conceived its function t o be wider than this. As well as being a defence mechanism it has attempted to become the instrument of social change. Here Trade Unionism becomes the pick or the axe as well as the horny hand that swings it. It strikes blows against the order in which it finds itself. But its form and the line of its attack are largely conditioned by the system which i t attacks. So here again it may be regarded as a product of the existing order.

Suppose, however, that the axe of Trade Unionism had been laid to the root of Capitalism. And suppose Capitalism had fallen. What nes t? What will Trade Unionism do then? We have to suppose an order in which free enterprise and private property in the means of production are abolished. Would there be a place for Trade Unionism in such an order? It is difficult to say what place it would occupy. For, with the motive of private profit abandoned, a defence mechanism would not be needed. There mould be no masters against whom an organized movement would have t o fight f o r better wages and better conditions. As for the second function of Trade

Two facts emerge from this survey.

28 THE ECONOMIC RECORD J U N E

Unionism-its role as an agent f o r changing the system-that would disappear automatically since the system would have been changed. It might be that the nem system would not be eternal and that agents of change and adaptation would still be required in the new society. But in a system of socialized capital such agents of change could not be Trade Unions as we know them. Trade Unionism in such a system would be like Othello-its occupation would be gone.

VI Fifteen years ago theorizing of this kind would have been

an interesting, perhaps an irritating, speculation. But since 1917 theory has become practice. One great social group of one hundred and sixty million people has changed its system. Is there any evidence that, in Russia, Trade Unionism, as we know it, is disappearing? Fa r from disappearing, as a movement it has grown enormously. The membership has increased threefold since 1920 and was, in 1932, over sixteen and a half millions. From 1917-1920 the Trade Unions were very important both industrially and politically. Their political importance has since decreased. The revolution having arrived, they can no longer be regarded as the instruments of revolution- ary change. In 1925, Tomsky, president of the Trade Unions in Russia, told the Seventh Congress of the Trade Unions that “We do not conceal from any one that the trade union movement has been directed, is being directed, and will continue to be directed by the Communist Party”.l

On the industrial side, there is the same story of B decreasing share in management and control. The earlier experiments of trade union control in the factories were abandoned on the ground that the factories belonged to the workers as a whole and not to any group of workers. . This is essentially the same line of criticism that was levelled a t Syndicalism by orthodox Socialists in the early years of the century. The New Economic Policy of 1921 brought the Trade Unions back to their old functions in so far as it re-introduced capitalist employers. Then came the adoption of the Five Year Plan, which‘ involved highly centralized direction of industry and superseded Trade Union control in the factories and throughout industry in general. The revised Labour policy of the Communist Party has taken from the Trade Unions its share in fixing wage-rates, hours and conditions of work. Even

1. Bataell: Soviet Ruh in Ruaaia, p. 710.

1934 TRADE UNIONISM 29

their responsibility f o r social insurance has been taken away. Trade Union organization must be done outside working hours. A single manager has replaced the older Boards which were set up as group controllers of the factories. Two years ago (23/6/31), Stalin bluntly said :

“As matters now stand, ten or fifteen people sit on Boards writing papers and discussing. . . . It is time for us t o put a stop to this paper leadership. . . . Let the chairman and a few assistants remain . . . the best thing for the others would be to go down and into the shops and factories. ”2

A little later, with his sense of the value of a phrase, Stalin coined the expression “interference by democratic meetingism ” -which is a delightful characterization of a disease which afflicts other countries besides Russia. Still later “ democratic meetingism” was declared to be a counter-revolutionary activity. Tomslcy opposed this whittling down of Trade Union functions, holding that the Unions should remain as independent guardians of the workers’ interests. But Stalin was ready with an appropriate charge, and Tomsky was accused of ‘‘crypto- menshevism”. For this crime he was cast out from the Communist Party in 1929, and remained in the wilderness till 1932, when he re-appeared in a totally new role as head of the State Publishing O f f i ~ e . ~

Yet Russian Trade Unions flourish and they are given plenty t o do. What has taken the place of their old jobs? Well ! their chief business is to promote rapid industrialization. They are to speed up on the job, to discipline their members and prevent undue holidays. They are t o promote faster and better work by introducing schemes of piece rates and bonuses and by a new technique of “cultural discipline”. The indolent worker is t o be re-educated. He is to learn what his part is in the Great Plan. If this fails he is to be ostracized. His children will be asked to join in this ostracism and promote the process of discipline. Workers who change their jobs too frequently are caricatured in the factory papers with wings like birds. A unionist who absents himself without leave may find on his return t o work a new made grave in the factory yard, a t the head of which stands a cross bearing his name.

2. Quoted from Soviet Union Revicw by Amy Hew- in The American Ecommic Review. December, 1932. DP. 605-1319.

3. Ibid. P. 611 : see also Economic Histmu (supplement of the Economic Journal), Vol. 11, No. 8. “Trade Unions in the Soviet State”, by Crottet and Chilb. pp. 617-628,

30 THE ECONOMIC RECORD J U N E 1934

The present functions of Trade Unionism in Russia have been described as a combination “of Taylorism and Communist Evangel i~rn”.~ The Communist Par ty has invented for the Trade Unions a new slogan-“Eyes on Production”. Instead of a rule book, the Trade Union Secretary in Russia now carries a stop watch !

These facts are not related in order to hold up the fate of Trade Unionism in Russia as a horrible warning t o Trade Unionists in Australia. For the Russian Trade Unions have accepted this new role of labour disciplinarians under the industrialization scheme, and it has called forth the energy and enthusiasm of the workers to a remarkable extent as the figures of the Five Year Plan show plainly. As the Russians themselves say: “in Russia there is no enemy party. So no one tries to give as little as he can for as much as he can. That type of scheming belongs to a system which relies on profits.”5

Moreover, it must be remembered that Russia is in the throes of a special effort. To accomplish industrialization and socialization the workers are prepared to make special sacrilices. When this aim has been realized, the Trade Unionists believe that their Unions will develop fresh functions, which may not be economic a t all, but educational and cultural.

If this does happen-and it does not seem unlikely-it still further emphasizes the point that I am trying to emphasize. These organizations of workers may continue to be called Trade Unions, but they will not be Trade Unions in the sense in which the Western World understands the term. They will not be organizations f o r the defence of the workers, nor agencies of social change. These have been the historical roles of Trade Unionism during the past 200 years under a system of Capitalism. Should that system be replaced by another in which capital is socialized, these functions must disappear. Events in Russia seem to confirm this, and to lend point to the contention that Trade Unionism, in its present form, is a characteristic product of Capitalism, and must be expected to wither amay with the passing of the Capitalist order.

University of Adelaide. G. V. PORTUS.

4. Crottet and Childs. ut supra. D. 62’7. 6. Quoted Amy Hcwcs. ut 8uz)ra. P. 606.