THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE November 23, 1918 The Origins of Worker Control of Industry In Russia By John Reed The following article was written when Reed arrived in Sweden in February last, on his way from THE capitalist press has diligantly spread abroad all sorts of stories about the foolish conduct of the Russia, in answer to false stories being circulated by ing country, and then with the railroad employees union Russian industrial workers during the Revolution; the capitalist press about the management of Russian they had to pay with cloth for the transportation of the of their extravagant demands, their iguorance, and the industries. Owing to a variety of circumstances it has cotton. So with fuel from the coal mines of the Don.
brutality with which they have treated manufacturers not hitherto been published and now appears for the In the great private industries which remained open, the and technical experts. The outside world has recetved the first time.
Factory Shop Committees appointed delegates to confer impression that the Russian workingman gets enormous with the administration about getting fuel, raw material, wages, refuses to work, and that in short he has ruined and even orders. They had to keep account of all that Russian industry.
came into the factory, and all that wont out. They made all the privilege of military law, ran away. Unlike the a valuation of the entire plant, so as to find out how much It is true that in Russia industry is at a low ebb. In private manufacturers, these government officials had no the factory was worth, how much stock was held, what the first place, coal was impossible to procure for a long interest in the business. The workers, in order to prevent the profits were. Everywhere the workers greatest dif.
time, because Kaledine and hig Cossacks had control of the closing down of the factory, had to take charge of the the Donetz Basin, and after them the Germans; machinery administration. In some places, as at Sestroretzk, this ficulty was with the owners, who concealed profits, refused orders, and tried in every way to destroy the efficiency of has deteriorated, owing to the fact that no new parts meant taking charge of the town also. And these gov the plant, so as to discredit the workers organizations, have come from abroad for two long years and more, ernment plants were run with such inefficiency, so much All counter revolutionary anti democratic engineers, and the technical experts, engineers, etc. faithful to the corruption, that the Workers Committee, although it capitalist class, at first refused to submit to the direction raised wages, shortened hours, and hired more hands, acclerks, foremen, etc. were discharged by the Factory Shop of the workmen committees; and last of all, the working tually increased production and reduced expenses at the the recommendation of the Factory Shop Committee of Committees, nor could they enter any other factory without class itself has been too hotly absorbed in politics, and in same time completing new buildings begun by dishonest their preceding place of employment. Workers were refighting the enemies of the Revolution from Kornilov to contractors, constructing a fine new hospital, and giving quired to join the union before they were hired, and the Kerensky, Kaledine, the Ukrainian Rada, Germany, the the town its first sewerage system. With these government Factory Shop Committee supervised the carrying out of Czecho Slovas and the Allies. But on the technical side, plants the Factory Shop Committees had a comparatively all union scales and regulations.
if Russian industry is ruined, it is the manufacturers and easy time. For a long time after the Revolution there owners who are to blame they who tried to starve the was no authority to question the authority of the workers, The fight by the capitalists against these Factory Shop Revolution by shutting down the factories and mines, by and finally when the Kerensky government began to in Committees was extremely bitter. Their work was hinderruining organization, wrecking the railroads, deliberately terfere, the workers had complete control. Working as ed at every step. The most extravagant lies have been destroying the machinery of industry, and flooding the they were on munitions, with standing orders, there was published in the capitalist press about lazy workmen mines.
no excuse for closing down, and in fuel and raw materials who spent all their time in talking when they should be Many of the tales about extravagant labor demands, of the government itself supplied them. Although many working while as a matter of fact the Factory Shop times under the inefficient Kerensky government the gov Committees usually had to work eighteen hours a day; workmen control committees which broke down, etc. are ernment shops were in danger of closing down, and the about the enormous size of the Committees while for of course true. But the important thing is that till the Shop Committees had to send their delegates to Baku to example at Putilov Works, the largest factory in PetroNovember Revolution, the Russian workmen as a whole buy oil, to Kharkov for coal, and to Siberia for iron.
were still over worked, underpaid. except in certain grad, employing about 40, 000 men, the Central Factory a special Shop Committee, representing eleven departments and 48 factories. and that at the same time there was growing From Sestroretzk the Shop Committee spread like wild shops, consisted of twenty two men. Even Skobelev, up all over Russia a spontaneous industrial organization fire to other government shops then to private establish Socialist Minister of Labor under the Kerensky governcapable of being at least the promising frame work of a rew industrial order.
ment, issued an order in the first part of September that the Factory Shop Committees should only meet after The three cardinal demands of the November Revolution working hours. and no longer receive wages for their time were, Peace, Land to the Peasants, and Workers Control MISTAKE MADE BY BOLSHEVIKI on Committee business. As a matter of fact, the Factory of Industry, and of these three the last point of Workers (From The Boston Traveler, November 21, 1918)
Shop Committees were all that kept Russian industry from Control was perhaps the most important, because the One of the big mistakes made by the Bolsheviki in Russia, was their failure after they got in power to complete disintegration during the days of the Coalition tendency of now Russia is more and more toward the keep managing brains in charge of businesses.
government. Thus the new Russian industrial order was abolitiou of the political state, and the evolution of in They assumed that ownership of properties conborn of necessity.
austrial democracy.
ferred upon them special magical powers which would enable them to operate businesses efficiently, Each Factory Shop Committee has five departments: The history of labor organization in Russia is very brief. If we may believe the dark reports that come from Production and Distribution, Fuel, Raw Materials, Before the 1905 Revolution no labor unions, in the strict Russia, and there seems to be reason for doubting Technical Organization of the Industry, and Demobilisense of the word, existed. The only recognized work them, business has been paralyzed, factories are men representation was the election of a starosta, or zation (or changing from war to. peace basis. In closed down and workers are everywhere down and workers are everywhere idle.
each district, all the factories of one indastry combined elder. much as the starostas are elected in Russian vil The new rulers would have done better had they to send two delegates to a district Council and each lages, and even in Russian prisons, and with about as tried to save what they could of the old industrial district council sent one delegate to the city council which much power. In 1905, some 200, 000 workmen joined the machine, and had used it for their own purposes.
unions. Stolypin suppressed them. Some little unions Instead, they turned the former owners out, scrapped in turn had its delegates in the All Russian Council, in the persisted, but they were finally crushed, their funds seized, the managing brains, and all the wheels stopped.
Central Committee of the Professional Unions and in the Killing the persons who possessed the knowledge Soviet.
their leaders sent to Siberia. After that the unions ex which enabled them to compel the geese to lay goldisted half secretly, with a membership over all Russia of en eggs has proved to be bad.
Not all workmen are union workmen in Russia; but about 10, 000. During the war, however, all attempts at Power without specialized knowledge and dis every factory worker must be represented in the Factory labor organization were ruthlessly stamped out, and workciplined workers is practically useless.
Shop Committee. And the Factory Shop Committee supmen discovered in any connection with labor organizations plements and completes the work of the Professional were sent to the front.
Unions, and absolutely controls production at its very The Revolution released the workers partly from this ments working on government orders, then to private source.
bondage, and pushed toward rapid organization. After industries, and finally to the factories which were closed This method of controlling production by the workers, four months of the Revolution the first conference of the down at the beginning of the Revolution. First the sprung spontaneously from the Russian revolution, has Professional Unions of All Russia was held 200 delegates movement was confined to Petrograd, but soon it began just been legalized by the new Workmen and Peasants representing more than 1, 400, 000 workers. Two months to spread over all Russia, and just before the November Government of the Russian Republic. Also it has become later the membership was calculated at more that 8, 000, revolution took place the first An Russian Congress of possible, through the power of the government, for the 000, according to the report of Riazonov; it is now more Fctory Shop Committees. At the present time, repre workmen themselves to take over and operate all plants the double that number.
sentatives of the Factory Shop Committees and represent whose owners cannot keep them open. With unlimited atives of the Professional Unions make up the Depart. credit behind them, and the huge, organized force of the Now these Professional Unions (Professionalne Soyuse)
ment of Labor of the new government, and compose the government, there is no reason why the workers cannot were modelled on the French syndicats, with the addition Council of Workers Control hire engineers and technical staff, or why, with such trainof government co operation suggested by the German labor union system. They were mainly concerned with the The first Committees in the privato factories were vainly ing, they may not be able, in a few years, to take over the fight for shorter hours, higher wagos in short, the routine engaged in keeping the industry going, in the face lack greater part of Russian industrial enterprise. With the control of the means of production and distribution in business of labor unions everywhere. For instance, they of coal, of raw materials, and especially, the sabotage of established a system of Conciliation Chambers for the the owners and the administrative force, who wanted to the hands of the popular government, the main obstacle to hearing of industrial disputes for industrial arbitration shut down. It was question of life and death to the the achievement of industrial democracy has vanished.
under government supervision. But their important work workers. The newly formed Shop Committees were forced was the organization of all the workers into great in to find out how many orders the factory had, how much dustrial unions, in the dissolution of all the petty craft fuel and raw material were on hand, what was the income II Elihu Root activities in the reorganization of the organizations, merging them into the big unions. Thus in from the business in order to determine the wages that National Security League into the Predatory Interests the Government gun factory at Sestroretzk, for example, could be paid and to control itself discipline of the workSecurity League will keep him so busy that he will be unall those who worked upon the manufacture of rifles the ers, and the hiring and discharging of men. In factories men who forged barrels, the machinists who fitted the which the owners insisted could not keep open, the workers able to attend the Peace Conference the continuance of mechanism, the carpenters who made the stock all were were forced to take charge themselves, and run the bus that body may well prove to be a blessing in disguise.
members of the Metal Workers Union.
iness as well as they could.
But the Professional Unions, in spite of their importSome of the experiments were very interesting. For George Bernard Shaw will doubtless feel grateful to the ance, occupied a secondary position in the workers minds.
In the first place, the Soviets, half political, hall economic, example, there was a cotton factory in Novgorod which was American press for its efforts to make his prediction, that abandoned by its owners The workers inexperienced in absorbed their energies; in the second place, those unique administration, took charge. The first thing they did the side that came out on top in this war would skin the organizations, spontaneously created by the Russian Rev.
was to manufacture enough cloth for their own needs, and other side alive, come true.
olution, the Factory Shop Committees (Fabritchnoe Za then for the needs of the other workers in Novgorod.
vodaki Comitiet) required their attention. These latter are the real foundation of the Workers Control of Industry. After that the Shop Committee sent men out to factories to xchange cotton cloth for other While all this talk about reconstruction is going on it The Factory Committees originated in the government articles they needed shoes, implements; they exchanged might be well to appoint a committee to reconstruct tha munitions factorios. At the outbreak of the Revolution, cloth for bread with the peasants; and finally they began 80 called Public Libaries that volunteer public censori most of the administrators of the government factories, to take orders from commercial houses. For their raw chiefly military oficers who brutalised the workers with material they had to send men south to the cotton grow have looted in the name of patriotism.