Labor army

The notion of the Labor army (трудовая армия, трудармия) was introduced in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War in 1920.

[2] Leon Trotsky, acting as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic at this time, developed this idea further.

[4] Later Trotskyists such as Isaac Deutscher and Tony Cliff have been critics of this policy but Ernest Mandel asserted that a myth had been constructed around the role of Trotsky in the trade-union debate.

Mandel argued this controversy had been used by liberal circles in Russia to claim that Trotsky’s proposals on the “militarization of labour” had provided the groundwork for more repressive and authoritarian policies which were later adopted by Stalin against workers.

Mandel further re-iterated that Trotsky's attitudes was driven by his concern about the need to prepare workers for key positions in factory management and he had proposed replacing war communism with the NEP a year ahead of the party leadership.