The Workers' Opposition (Russian: Рабочая оппозиция) was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Year 1920 ( MCMXX) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920 of the Gregorian calendar It was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, who was also chairman of the Russian Metalworkers' Union, and it consisted of trade union leaders and industrial administrators who had formerly been industrial workers. Alexander Gavrilovich Shliapnikov (also spelt Shlyapnikov (Александр Гаврилович Шляпников ( August 30, 1885, Murom - September 2 Alexandra Kollontai, the famous socialist feminist, was the group's mentor and advocate. Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й &mdash born Domontovich, Домонто́вич ( - March 9, Other prominent members included Sergei Medvedev and Mikhail Vladimirov (leaders of the Metalworkers' Union), Alexander Tolokontsev and Genrikh Bruno (artilleries industry leaders), Mikhail Chelyshev (a member of the Party Control Commission), Ivan Kutuzov (chairman of the Textileworkers' Union), Kirill Orlov (member of the Council of Military Industry and a participant in the 1905 mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin), and Alexei Kiselev (chairman of the Miners' Union). Sergei Pavlovich Medvedev (1885-1937 was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary metalworker and trade union organizer The Uprising Origins In 1905 The Central Committee of the Social Democratic Organization of the Black Sea Fleet started preparations for a simultaneous crew Yuri Lutovinov, a leader of the Metalworkers' Union and of the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions, sometimes spoke for the group, but sometimes held his own opinion. Yuri (Kharitonovich or Khrisanfovich Lutovinov (1887 - 1924 was a Russian labor leader
The Workers' Opposition advocated the role of unionized workers in directing the economy at a time when Soviet government organs were running industry by dictate and trying to exclude trade unions from a participatory role. Specifically, the Workers' Opposition demanded that unionized workers (blue and white collar) should elect representatives to a vertical hierarchy of councils that would oversee the economy. At all levels, elected leaders would be responsible to those who had elected them and could be removed from below. The Workers' Opposition demanded that Russian Communist Party secretaries at all levels cease petty interference in the operations of trade unions and that trade unions should be reinforced with staff and supplies to allow them to carry out their work effectively. Leaders of the Workers' Opposition were not opposed to the employment of "bourgeois specialists" in the economy, but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers, unchecked from below.
The Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, in 1921, condemned the Workers' Opposition for factionalism, but adopted some of its proposals, including conducting a purge of the Party and organizing better supply of workers, to improve workers' living conditions. Year 1921 ( MCMXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar of the Gregorian calendar Several leaders of the Workers' Opposition, including Shlyapnikov, were elected to the Party Central Committee. Nevertheless, Party leaders subsequently undertook a campaign to subordinate trade unions to the Party and to harass and intimidate those who opposed this campaign.
Members of the former Workers' Opposition continued to advocate their views during the period of the New Economic Policy but increasingly became politically marginalized. For the Malaysian New Economic Policy see Malaysian New Economic Policy. Shlyapnikov and his supporters conducted discussions with Gavril Myasnikov's Workers' Group, but unlike Myasnikov, were determined not to leave the ranks of the Communist Party. Gavril Ilyich Myasnikov (1889-1945 also transliterated as Gavriil Il'ich Miasnikov, was a Russian metalworker from the Urals, who participated in the Revolution Some members of the Workers' Opposition, including Shlyapnikov and Kollontai, signed the "Letter of the Twenty-Two" [1] to the Comintern in 1922, protesting Russian Communist Party leaders' suppression of dissent within the Party. The Comintern ( Com munist Intern ational also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organisation founded in Moscow Year 1922 ( MCMXXII) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Shlyapnikov, Kollontai, and Sergei Medvedev narrowly escaped expulsion from the Russian Communist Party at the Party's Eleventh Congress in 1922. Kollontai subsequently became an important diplomat and Shlyapnikov turned to writing his memoirs.
Many former members of the Workers' Opposition, including Shlyapnikov, Medvedev, and Chelyshev, were executed in the late 1930s during Stalin's Terror.
Bibliography
Daniels, Robert. The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, Mass. , 1960; revised edition, Boulder, Col. , 1988.
Holmes, Larry E. For the Revolution Redeemed: The Workers Opposition in the Bolshevik Party, 1919-1921. The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, no. 802 (1990).
Kollontai, Alexandra. Rabochaya oppozitsiya. Moscow, 1921. Translated into English by Solidarity in London and the IWW in the United States.
Sorenson, Jay. The Life and Death of Soviet Trade Unionism: 1917-1928. New York, 1969.
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