Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- Economic conditions -- 1917-1945; Soviet Union -- Politics and government -- 1917-1936
But the discussion was not limited to the newspapers or to this
Commission. The question was discussed in Soviets and Conferences of
every kind all over the country. Thus, on January 1st an All-Russian
Conference of local "departments for the registration and distribution
of labor," after prolonged argument, contributed their views. They
pointed out (1) the need of bringing to work numbers of persons who
instead of doing the skilled labor for which they were qualified were
engaged in petty profiteering, etc.; (2) that there evaporation of
skilled labor into unproductive speculation could at least be checked
by the introduction of labor books, which would give some sort of
registration of each citizen's work; (3) that workmen can be brought
back from the villages only for enterprises which are supplied with
provisions or are situated in districts where there is plenty. ("The
opinion that, in the absence of these preliminary conditions, it will be
possible to draw workmen from the villages by measures of compulsion or
mobilization is profoundly mistaken.") (4) that there should be a census
of labor and that the Trades Unions should be invited to protect the
interests of the conscripted. Finally, this Conference approved the idea
of using the already existing military organization for carrying out a
labor census of the Red Army, and for the turning over to labor of parts
of the army during demobilization, but opposed the idea of giving the
military organization the work of labor registration and industrial
conscription in general.
On January 22, 1920, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, after
prolonged discussion of Trotsky's rough memorandum, finally adopted
and published a new edition of the "theses," expanded, altered, almost
unrecognizable, a reasoned body of theory entirely different from
the bundle of arrows loosed at a venture by Trotsky. They definitely
accepted the principle of industrial conscription, pointing out the
immediate reasons for it in the fact that Russia cannot look for much
help from without and must somehow or other help herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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