Workers' Opposition
[2] Their first public appearance as an organized group was at the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), in September 1920, when the faction not only declared its existence, but also summed up the “work to be done”.
This confrontation led to an intensification of the struggle within the organization itself: the party's Novosilsky District committee opposed the election of Kopylov and called for an extraordinary conference.
The Central Committee nevertheless decided to convene an extraordinary party conference in the province: a resolution evaluating the work as unsatisfactory was adopted by a majority of 185 votes against 49.
[4] From the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920, the workers' opposition matured along the periphery of Moscow Oblast and, by March 1920, took shape in the capital with many trade union leaders joining the group.
[4] Shlyapnikov's theses caused great concern within the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which saw in them the manifestation of tendencies toward syndicalism in the Soviet trade unions - that is, an attempt on the leading role of the party in the economic sphere.
Yuri Lutovinov formulated a number of provisions that later became part of the group's opposition program: in his speech he “fervently insisted on the immediate implementation of the broadest possible labor democracy, on the complete abolition of appointment, and on the strictest cleansing of the party.” The Bolshevik conference did not support this proposal: moreover, at the meeting it was decided to create a control commission, whose task was to prevent the factional struggle in the party.
As indicated in the Central Committee's report, "the opposition itself was extremely hostile to the common party line": subsequently, Lenin noted that it came to the point that "the conference ended in two rooms".
[4] According to Aleksei Semyonovich Kiselyov, serious disagreements with the party leadership among the trade union leaders emerged at the beginning of 1920: he saw them as the main reason for the transition to a policy of militarization of labor.
At that time, the majority of trade unions believed that the prospect of the end of active hostilities required, if not a change in policy guidelines, then at least a shift in emphasis in the organization of labor - a transition to economic incentives.
Moreover, the party leadership proceeded from the assumption that in the prevailing conditions at the time of the end of the long war, reliance on conventional methods of industrial management would not be able to prevent the final collapse of the Soviet economy: they believed that emergency measures, including military ones, were necessary.
The first could be attributed to David Riazanov and Mikhail Tomsky, who believed that trade unions should withdraw from economic affairs and deal primarily with the organization of labor.
And the third group consisted of Shlyapnikov's supporters, who believed that trade unions should become the sole responsible organizations in the field of the national economy of the RSFSR.
[4] On December 30, 1920, leaders of intra-party groups spoke at an expanded meeting of the communist faction of the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets and All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, where they outlined their political platforms.
At the same time, the resolution proposed to send representatives to the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in proportion to the number of votes cast in support of each group.
In addition, a desire was expressed to send agitators to the province who were obliged to provide propaganda and organizational assistance to local supporters of the Leninist group.
Nonetheless, on 5 July 1921 Kollontai took the floor before the Third Congress of the Comintern, bitterly attacking the policies of the Soviet government and warning that NEP 'threatened to disillusion workers, to strengthen the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, and to facilitate the rebirth of capitalism'.
Kollontai co-signed the letter, with her best friend Zoya Shadurskaia, as intellectuals of non-working-class extraction, but in February 1922 she was restrained by Trotsky and Zinoviev from speaking before the Comintern Executive on behalf of the views expressed in the appeal.
The "Workers' Opposition" based their ideas on the experience of the first months of Soviet power - a short period when the organization of production was really carried out on the basis of the self-government of the proletarians.
