The Workers Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: The Fight for Workers Democracy in the Soviet Union

by Alexandra Kollontai

A manifesto of the Workers Opposition, a group within the USSR's Communist Party that rejected Leninist centralization and Stalinist dictatorship, and argued for direct worker control of the industries, democratic socialism, the rights of labor unions, the right of free criticism of Party leaders and programs, the end of Party repression, and a return to the original worker-organized Council-based state structure. Most of the Workers Opposition died in Stalin's jails.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Soviet Union, Politics, Theory, Russian History

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Russian: Александра Михайловна Коллонтай — née Domontovich, Домонтович was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1923, Kollontai was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, one of the first women to hold such a post (Diana Abgar was earlier).

Reviews

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible critique of the early problems of the USSR, mainly their lack of faith in the trade unions and workers who made the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the brief detour by the Soviet leaders towards bureaucracy, and the formation of the Workers' Opposition, a group within the Bolshevik Party that advocated for a workers democracy, the abolition of bureaucracy, and a return to the tenets of Marxist thought within the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Kollontai takes on not only Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Trotsky, but Lenin himself, who she includes in the list of leaders who were being enticed by elements of bureaucracy in order to catch up with the rest of the industrialized, capitalist world, at the sake of the workers who were still living and working in deplorable conditions. She lays out a meticulously written analysis of the disintegration of proletariat dictatorship by the leaders who at this point, wanted to dissolve the trade unions and execute Soviet policy from an official, bureaucratic standpoint. In it, she chastises the leaders for letting the needs of Russian workers fall by the wayside, and for allowing the capitalists of pre-socialist Russia, to not only retain their jobs in the apparatus Lenin sought to tear down, but to allow them into the Party still retaining their old beliefs. She boldly calls for a removal of all non-workers from the Party and allow them readmission only on the condition that they take on manual labor and actually, well, work.

Alexandra Kollontai also makes it very clear that despite the growing problems in the early USSR [this was only in 1920, just 3 years after the revolution], the Workers' Opposition was formed not to split from the Party, but instead to guide it back down a correct path. This shows that Kollontai, despite all the issues in the Bolshevik Party, including the sexism she and other women workers endured and fought against, that she still believed in the Bolshevik Revolution, the Party, and Communism.

This was an electrifying read.

[RakhmetovsCigarette · Rating 5 out of 5]

dönemin çelişkilerini ve çözüm önerilerini, hem bir bolşevik ve hem de bir muhalif olan işçi muhalefetinin tanıklığından okumak, kültleştirilmiş ve bu kültleşmenin doğal sonucu olan mesihvari yaklaşımdan ötürü eleştirilerden doğal olarak muaf kılınmış lenin, troçki ve eşrafına eleştirilerin en içten ve en bolşevik halini bize sunuyor.

[Marduk]

A scathing criticism of the ominous tendencies in the bolshevik party already present in 1921, that would later come to define the worst aspects of the Soviet Union - strict hierarchical obedience, stifling bureaucracy and absolute disregard and even hostility towards any spontaneous initiative originating from below.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the essential documents for students of the Russian Revolution.

[Amadeo Dazai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great work detailing and even foreshadowing some of the turmoils that will face the workers' state even if it was released at a horrible time.