The Fourth Type of the Trade Union Movement
There was another very important occurence which brought in a change in the picture of the world trade union movement. That was the appearance, formation, and development of the trade union movement in Russia. While I have been picturing the trade union movement of the world, Russia was not even mentioned. It is true that in Russia, but they were so insignificant that they did not play any role at all within Russia, and so much less outside of Russia. The trade unions which were organized by us in 1905,and those developed in 1906, had been destroyed by the victory of Stolypin (a reactionary premier). They appeared again in the period of economic revival in 1912–13 but were entirely destroyed at the beginning of the war.
But in the post-war period, we see something entirely different. Together with the February revolution, with the appearance of trade unions in Russia, and especially with the October revolution, there appeared on the scene also a fourth factor in the world labor movement, one which we may call the heart of the revolutionary trade union movement, which, in short, may be characterized as the "Communist trade union movement," which includes the best there is in the unions of the world.
Above we gave the characteristics of the three types of the trade union movement, which we marked according to their geographical lines, as the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin and the German; but if we will use the political terminology we will have: Trade Unionism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, and the Reformist or Social-Democratic trade movements.
What are the characteristics of the fourth type of the trade union movement? We characterized it as "Communist." But, doesn't that mean that the trade union movement is the same as the Party movement?—It is first of all Communist by its contents, by its tactics, aims and methods of struggle, although it officially is not a part of one or another party. The party is supposed to have only an ideological leadership of the trade union movement.
The fourth type of the trade union movement, which we may without exaggeration call the "Russian type" (to apply to it also a geographical term), is different from the other trade union movements in that it has never been a purely economic or purely co-operative movement. Our trade union movement was always a deeply class movement, even when it had before itself the everyday problems, it would consider them from the point of view of the general interests of the class struggle.
The fourth type of the trade union movement is different from the reformist trade union movement in that it never had as its aim the gradual transition from capitalism to socialism. Our movement is different from the anarcho-syndicalist in that it has never been anti-state in the metaphysical sense, in the abstract. The Russian trade union
