unions really workers organizations?
At the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik party in 1921, Lenin declared that the workers ought to have trade-union organizations capable of defending their rights, "even against their own worker's state." The workers! rights must not be viewed from a narrow economic angle, The Soviet workers must also have. political rights, especially the right to disagree with policies of the Soviet govern=ment or of the ruling party at a particular moment.
Whatever may be the differences and the relations between the Communist party of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Conmunist party, nothing can justify the Soviet and Chinese trade unions automati~ cally lining up with the parties and governments of their countries and more or less breaking relations with each other, This situation occurred once before, at the time of the Yugoslav-Soviet conflict in 1948, Is it necessary to repeat the scandal?
The attitude of the leaders of the Soviet trade wnions shows that they are not the representatives of the workers but vulgar government functionaries. Despite all the changes that have come with "de-Stalinization," the Soviet workers still do not have genuinely independent organizations; in particular they don't have genuine trade unions, This raises the question of the antibureaucratic political revolution which will-re-establish Soviet democracy, granting, among other things, the right of independent workers organizations to be maintained within: the framework of the workers state.