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What Is Wage Assignment?

Definition and example of wage assignment, how wage assignment works, wage assignment vs. wage garnishment.

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A wage assignment is when creditors can take money directly from an employee’s paycheck to repay a debt.

Key Takeaways

• A wage assignment happens when money is taken from your paycheck by a creditor to repay a debt.
• Unlike a wage garnishment, a wage assignment can take place without a court order, and you have the right to cancel it at any time.
• Creditors can only take a portion of your earnings. The laws in your state will dictate how much of your take-home pay your lender can take.

A wage assignment is a voluntary agreement to let a lender take a portion of your paycheck each month to repay a debt. This process allows lenders to take a portion of your wages without taking you to court first.

Borrowers may agree to allow a lender to use wage assignments, for example, when they take out payday loans . The wage assignment can begin without a court order, although the laws about how much they can take from your paycheck vary by state.

For example, in West Virginia, wage assignments are only valid for one year and must be renewed annually. Creditors can only deduct up to 25% of an employee’s take-home pay, and the remaining 75% is exempt, including for an employee’s final paycheck.

If you agree to a wage assignment, that means you voluntarily agree to have money taken out of your paycheck each month to repay a debt.

State laws govern how soon a wage assignment can take place and how much of your paycheck a lender can take. For example, in Illinois, you must be at least 40 days behind on your loan payments before your lender can start a wage assignment. Under Illinois law, your creditor can only take up to 15% of your paycheck. The wage assignment is valid for up to three years after you signed the agreement.

Your creditor typically will send a Notice of Intent to Assign Wages by certified mail to you and your employer. From there, the creditor will send a demand letter to your employer with the total amount that’s in default.

You have the right to stop a wage assignment at any time, and you aren’t required to provide a reason why. If you don’t want the deduction, you can send your employer and creditor a written notice that you want to stop the wage assignment. You will still owe the money, but your lender must use other methods to collect the funds.

Research the laws in your state to see what percentage of your income your lender can take and for how long the agreement is valid.

Wage assignment and wage garnishment are often used interchangeably, but they aren’t the same thing. The main difference between the two is that wage assignments are voluntary while wage garnishments are involuntary. Here are some key differences:

Once you agree to a wage assignment, your lender can automatically take money from your paycheck. No court order is required first, but since the wage assignment is voluntary, you have the right to cancel it at any point.

Wage garnishments are the results of court orders, no matter whether you agree to them or not. If you want to reverse a wage garnishment, you typically have to go through a legal process to reverse the court judgment.

You can also stop many wage garnishments by filing for bankruptcy. And creditors aren’t usually allowed to garnish income from Social Security, disability, child support , or alimony. Ultimately, the laws in your state will dictate how much of your income you’re able to keep under a wage garnishment.

Creditors can’t garnish all of the money in your paycheck. Federal law limits the amount that can be garnished to 25% of the debtor’s disposable income. State laws may further limit how much of your income lenders can seize.

Illinois Legal Aid Online. “ Understanding Wage Assignment .” Accessed Feb. 8, 2022.

West Virginia Division of Labor. “ Wage Assignments / Authorized Payroll Deductions .” Accessed Feb. 8, 2022.

U.S. Department of Labor. “ Fact Sheet #30: The Federal Wage Garnishment Law, Consumer Credit Protection Act's Title III (CCPA) .” Accessed Feb. 8, 2022.

Sacramento County Public Law Library. “ Exemptions from Enforcement of Judgments in California .” Accessed Feb. 8, 2022.

District Court of Maryland. “ Wage Garnishment .” Accessed Feb. 8, 2022.

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What Is a Wage Assignment?

How wage assignment works.

• Why Are Wage Assignments Voluntary?

Wage Garnishment

The bottom line.

• Credit & Debt
• Debt Management

Wage Assignment: What It Means, How It Works

Wage assignment is the act of taking money directly from an employee's paycheck in order to pay back a debt obligation. Such an automatic withholding plan may be used to pay back a variety of debt obligations, including back taxes, defaulted student loan debt, and both child and spousal support payments.

Key Takeaways

• A wage assignment takes funds directly from an employee's paycheck to pay back a debt.
• How wage assignments are regulated varies by state, with some states even allowing for voluntary child support agreements.
• A wage garnishment is an involuntary deduction and requires a court order.

Wage assignments are typically incurred for debts that have gone unpaid for a prolonged period of time. Employees may sometimes opt for a voluntary wage assignment to pay for things like union dues or to contribute to a retirement fund.

A wage assignment is processed as part of an employer's payroll procedure. The employee's paycheck is decreased by the amount of the assignment and noted on their pay stub.

A wage assignment is often a lender's last resort to receive repayment from a borrower who has previously failed to pay a debt obligation.

Wage assignments are a valuable tool for collecting unpaid debts, but unfortunately, they may be associated with abusive lending practices . If you're struggling with your debt, one of the best debt relief companies or credit counseling agencies may be able to help you get back on track before a wage assignment is incurred.

What Makes Wage Assignments Voluntary?

In a voluntary wage assignment, a worker essentially asks their employer to withhold a portion of their paycheck and send it to a creditor to pay off a debt. Loan agreements may sometimes include a voluntary wage assignment clause in their terms should the borrower default on their loan.

Payday lenders often include voluntary wage assignments into their loan agreements to better their chances of being repaid. Laws regarding wage assignments vary by state.

For example, in West Virginia, wage assignments are capped at 25% of a worker's take-home earnings, the employee and the employer must sign the agreement, and agreements must be renewed annually. Under Illinois law, a lender cannot resort to wage assignment until a debt is 40 days in default. The wage assignment cannot continue for more than three years, and the worker can stop the wage assignment at any time.

Involuntary wage deductions, known as wage garnishments , require a court order and are most likely to be employed to collect spousal and child support payments that have been ordered by a court. Wage garnishments may also be used to collect unpaid court fines or student loans that have been defaulted on.

Several states allow individuals to sign up for voluntary child support agreements. In such a case, both parents must agree to a plan. Once that happens, a voluntary wage assignment may begin. If a child support or welfare agency is involved, they would have to approve any plan.

How Long Can I Have a Wage Assignment?

Since wage assignments are voluntary, the length of time that you use one can vary. Some loans include a wage assignment agreement, so you'll have to check the language of your loan to determine your obligation. Each state also has its own regulations regarding wage assignments.

How Much of My Income Can Go to Wage Assignments?

Every state has its own regulations, but typically 15–25% of your disposable income can be designated for wage assignments.

Is Wage Garnishment the Same as Wage Assignment?

While they are similar, wage garnishment and assignment are not the same. Wage garnishment is an involuntary paycheck deduction, typically ordered to repay child support, student loans, tax debt, or bankruptcy. A wage assignment is voluntary and may be used to repay a consumer debt.

Wage assignments may be a useful tool to help you pay down a debt. Wage assignments are voluntary but they may be hidden in the fine print of some loan products, so read everything carefully before signing. Check the regulations in your state to determine if your wage assignment is revocable.

West Virginia Division of Labor. " Wage Payment and Collection (WPC) Act: Payroll Deductions and Wage Assignments ," Page 3.

Illinois General Assembly. " (740 ILCS 170/) Illinois Wage Assignment Act ."

U.S. Department of Labor. " Fact Sheet #30: The Federal Wage Garnishment Law, Consumer Credit Protection Act's Title III (CCPA) ."

Illinois Legal Aid. " Understanding Wage Assignment ."

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Wage assignment and employers’ responsibilities

Tough economic times raise some tricky HR issues—for example, when an employee’s financial straits begin to affect his employer.

Must we honor a payday loan wage assignment?

Q. An employee borrowed money from a payday loan service at a very high interest rate that I feel is unfair. The payday loan service sent me a “wage assignment” notice and told me that our company must withhold money from his paychecks.  What is a wage assignment, and does our company actually have to honor it? A. A wage assignment is a document that allows a creditor to attach part of the employee’s wages if the employee fails to pay a specific debt. The creditor does not have to obtain a judgment in a court proceeding before requesting payment. Under the Illinois Wage Assignment Act (740 ILCS 170), private employers are obligated to honor a creditor’s properly served demand for a valid wage assignment, unless an employee presents a timely, valid , written defense to the wage assignment.

What constitutes a valid assignment?

Q. How can I tell if a wage assignment is valid? How long is it valid? A. A valid wage assignment document must have the words “Wage Assignment” printed or written in boldface letters of not less than ¼ inch in height at the head of the wage assignment and one inch above or below the line where the employee signs the assignment. The employee must have signed the document in person, and the document must show the date of execution, the employee’s Social Security number, the name of the employer at the time of execution, the amount of money loaned or the price of the articles sold or other consideration given, the rate of interest or time-price differential to be paid, if any, and the date on which such payments are due. A wage assignment is valid for no more than three years after the employee signs it and the employer’s name appears on it. If the employee changes jobs, the wage assignment is valid for two years, even though the new employer’s name does not appear on the assignment.

Handling wage assignments

Q. How does the wage assignment process start? A. Assuming that the wage assignment document complies with the formal requirements, the creditor must serve “demand to withhold” on the employer. The demand is valid only if:

The employee has defaulted on the debt secured by the assignment for more than 40 days, and the default has continued to the date of the demand.

The demand contains a correct statement of the amount the employee is in default, and the creditor provides an original or a photocopy of the assignment to the employer.

The creditor has served a “notice of intention to make the demand” upon the employee, with a copy to the employer, by registered or certified mail not less than 20 days before serving the demand.

Putting on the brakes

Q. Can an employee stop the wage assignment process? A. The employee does have a right to contest the demand. If an employee has a legal defense to the wage assignment, the employee may—within 20 days after receiving a notice of demand or within five days after the employer is served with the demand—notify the employer, in writing, of any defense to the wage assignment and send a copy of the written defense to the creditor by registered or certified mail.   As a result, the employee’s wages are not subject to a demand served by the creditor unless the employer receives a copy of a subsequent written agreement between the creditor and the employee authorizing such payments. Similarly, if the creditor receives a copy of the defense prior to serving its demand upon the employer, the creditor may not serve the demand upon the employer.  Whether the employee’s defense is legally valid is not an issue the employer must resolve. Instead, the employee and the creditor may attempt to reach another agreement or the creditor may simply bring a separate lawsuit against the employee to collect an outstanding debt. 

Calculating the wage assignment payment

Q. How much must the employer withhold—and when? A. The employer must begin payment to the creditor no sooner than five business days after service of such a demand.  The employer must withhold the lesser of:

15% of weekly gross wages

The amount by which the disposable earnings for a week (pay remaining after federal and state taxes, Social Security deductions and any other amounts required by law to be withheld, including required retirement contributions) exceed 45 times the federal minimum wage, unless a notice of defense is received within that five-day period.

The employer shall be paid a fee of $12 for each wage assignment. That $12 is credited against the debt.

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Wage Assignments and Garnishments: What Finance Leaders Need to Know

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Wage assignments and garnishments practices: Here are three things finance leaders must internally audit.

Wage assignments and wage garnishments are not the same. Each reflects a different process subject to different applicable laws. While there is always potential for a DOL Wage and Hour Division audit, financial leaders should internally audit their own processes to ensure compliance and efficiency while minimizing stress and anxiety for the employer and the employee. Here are three things to consider when conducting those audits.

1. Compliance

Wage assignments and wage garnishments differ in many ways. In fact, a wage assignment is not a garnishment. A wage assignment is a voluntary agreement between the employee and creditor where an amount is withheld from the employee's paycheck to satisfy a debt owed to a third-party recipient, whereas under a wage garnishment, the amount withheld from the employee's check is typically obtained through a court order initiated by the creditor.

Adding to the compliance challenge, there are several different types of wage garnishments, often with differing rules for each. For example, child support, bankruptcy and student loans are all types of wage garnishments. Wage garnishments for child support obligations are substantially governed by state law, which varies state to state, whereas garnishments for a bankruptcy plan are governed by federal law and garnishments for student loan debts are governed by either state or federal law, depending on the financing.

2. Efficiency

Businesses must be able to confirm when wage garnishments are initiated, when they cease and when more than one applies and in what order. This is what can make these withholdings complex — and messy. By having trackable systems in place, efficiency can be achievable.

3. Minimizing Stress and Anxiety

According to Workforce , wage garnishments can affect employee morale. Having wages withheld from paychecks may be a negative employee experience, especially when the employer has to get involved. For employers that are preparing audit-ready workplaces, these organizations face their own stress by potentially facing liability for noncompliance with respect to wage garnishment withholdings.

Having prudent processes in place may not only help with compliance and efficiency for the employer, but can also help alleviate stress for both the employee and the employer.

Learn about the ADP SmartCompliance® Wage Garnishment Module .

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Wage Assignment Overview

Usually, a creditor has to go to court to take part of your wages. This is called wage garnishment .

However, if you signed a form agreeing to a wage assignment, a creditor can take your wages without first going to court. You may agree to a wage assignment when you sign a loan contract. This allows your creditor to have money deducted from your wages if you don't pay.

Starting a Wage Assignment

You must be at least 40 days behind on your loan before the creditor can have your employer start taking money out of your paycheck.

First, the creditor must mail you and your employer a Notice of Intent to Assign Wages 20 days before they can make the demand. The notice has to be sent to you by certified or registered mail. You should receive advance warning that money will be deducted from your wages.

The notice must follow a specific form and must include the following information:

• be sent to you and your employer;
• be sent by registered or certified mail;
• inform you the creditor will demand part of your wages from your employer in 20 days;
• include a copy of the wage assignment; 
• tell you how much you owe; 
• include your options to respond to the notice; and
• include a revocation notice form.

The creditor then must send a demand letter to your employer. The demand must contain the correct amount in default and include a copy of the assignment. If the notice or demand does not follow the requirements of the law, they have no legal effect.

If you do not revoke the wage assignment, then 20 days later (once the loan is 40 days past due), your employer will start paying a portion of your paycheck to the creditor to pay off your debt.

Day One: Loan is past due

Day 20: Creditor sends notice

Day 40: Wage assignment begins.

Amount of a Wage Assignment

The creditor may take from your paycheck whichever amount is less between the following two options:

• 15% of your total wages, salary, commission, and bonuses for any workweek; or
• The amount your take-home pay (after taxes and other withholdings) for a week is over $630 (which is 45 times the 2024 state minimum hourly wage ).

That means that you can only have a wage assignment if you take home over $630 per week.

Stopping a Wage Assignment

You can stop a wage assignment at any time for any reason. If you don't want the deduction to happen, write a letter to your employer and creditor stating you are canceling the wage assignment. Remember, you will still owe the money. The creditor can use other methods to collect it. That probably means a court case, which may end with an involuntary wage garnishment.

Length of a Wage Assignment

A wage assignment is good for 3 years from the date you signed the wage assignment. But, if you changed jobs after you signed the wage assignment, the wage assignment is only good for 2 years from the date you signed the wage assignment.   If a creditor tries to collect money from your paycheck after the time period expires, you should talk to a lawyer. You might be able to sue the creditor in court.

Note : Child support and student loans can also result in garnishments without a court case.

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Moscow Increases Minimum Wage for 2021

By Sergei Blagov

The Russian capital city of Moscow increased its minimum wage for 2021 in a decree published Jan. 20.

In 2021, Moscow’s municipal subsistence minimum wage for able-bodied adults is 20,589 rubles (U.S. $279) per month, up from 20,361 rubles (U.S. $276), according to Moscow’s Decree No. 11-PP (Russian).

Under Moscow’s municipal regulations, the local minimum wage matches the subsistence minimum wage for able-bodied adults.

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V. I. Lenin

The trade unions, the present situation, and trotsky’s mistakes [1].

Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920

Delivered: 30 December, 1920 First Published: Published in pamphlet form in 1921;Published according to the pamphlet text collated with the verbatim report edited by Lenin. Source: Lenin’s Collected Works , 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 32 , pages 19-42 Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov Transcription\HTML Markup: David Walters & R. Cymbala Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, I must first of all apologise for departing from the rules of procedure, for anyone wishing to take part in the debate should have heard the report, the second report and the speeches. I am so unwell, unfortunately, that I have been unable to do this. But I was able yesterday to read the principal printed documents and to prepare my remarks. This departure from the rules will naturally cause you some inconvenience; not having heard the other speeches, I may go over old ground and leave out what should be dealt with. But I had no choice.

My principal material is Comrade Trotsky ’s pamphlet, The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions . When I compare it with the theses he submitted to the Central Committee, and go over it very carefully, I am amazed at the number of theoretical mistakes and glaring blunders it contains. How could anyone starting a big Party discussion on this question produce such a sorry excuse for a carefully thought out statement? Let me go over the main points which, I think, contain the original fundamental theoretical errors.

Trade unions are not just historically necessary; they are historically inevitable as an organisation of the industrial proletariat, and, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, embrace nearly the whole of it. This is basic, but Comrade Trotsky keeps forgetting it; he neither appreciates it nor makes it his point of departure, all this while dealing With “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, a subject of infinite compass.

It follows from what I have said that the trade unions have an extremely important part to play at every step of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But what is their part? I find that it is a most unusual one, as soon as I delve into this question, which is one of the most fundamental theoretically. On the one hand, the trade unions, which take in all industrial workers, are an organisation of the ruling, dominant, governing class, which has now set up a dictatorship and is exercising coercion through the state. But it is not a state organisation; nor is it one designed for coercion, but for education. It is an organisation designed to draw in and to train; it is, in fact, a school: a school of administration, a school of economic management, a school of communism. It is a very unusual type of school, because there are no teachers or pupils; this is an extremely unusual combination of what has necessarily come down to us from capitalism, and what comes from the ranks of the advanced revolutionary detachments, which you might call the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. To talk about the role of the trade unions without taking these truths into account is to fall straight into a number of errors.

Within the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the trade unions stand, if I may say so, between the Party and the government. In the transition to socialism the dictatorship of the proletariat is inevitable, but it is not exercised by an organisation which takes in all industrial workers. Why not? The answer is given in the theses of the Second Congress of the Communist International on the role of political parties in general. I will not go into this here. What happens is that the Party, shall we say, absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat, and this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship cannot be exercised or the functions of government performed without a foundation such as the trade unions. These functions, however, have to be performed through the medium of special institutions which are also of a new type, namely, the Soviets. What are the practical conclusions to be drawn from this peculiar situation? They are, on the one hand, that the trade unions are a link between the vanguard and the masses, and by their daily work bring conviction to the masses, the masses of the class which alone is capable of taking us from capitalism to communism. On the other hand, the trade unions are a “reservoir” of the state power. This is what the trade unions are in the period of transition from capitalism to communism. In general, this transition cannot be achieved without the leadership of that class which is the only class capitalism has trained for large-scale production and which alone is divorced from the interests of the petty proprietor. But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of transition from capitalism to communism. From this alone it is evident that there is something fundamentally wrong in principle when Comrade Trotsky points, in his first thesis, to “ideological confusion”, and speaks of a crisis as existing specifically and particularly in the trade unions. If we are to speak of a crisis, we can do so only after analysing the political situation. It is Trotsky who is in “ideological confusion”, because in this key question of the trade unions’ role, from the standpoint of transition from capitalism to communism, he has lost sight of the fact that we have here a complex arrangement of cogwheels which cannot be a simple one; for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people. In Russia, this mass is a peasant one. There is no such mass anywhere else, but even in the most advanced countries there is a non-proletarian, or a not entirely proletarian, mass. That is in itself enough to produce ideological confusion. But it’s no use Trotsky’s pinning it on others.

When I consider the role of the trade unions in production, find that Trotsky ’s basic mistake lies in his always dealing with it “in principle “, as a matter of “general principle”. All his theses are based on “general principle”, an approach which is in itself fundamentally wrong, quite apart from the fact that the Ninth Party Congress said enough and more than enough about the trade unions’ role in production, [2] and quite apart from the fact that in his own theses Trotsky quotes the perfectly clear statements of Lozovsky and Tomsky, who were to be his “whipping boys” and an excuse for an exercise in polemics. It turns out that there is, after all, no clash of principle, and the choice of Tomsky and Lozovsky, who wrote what Trotsky himself quotes, was an unfortunate one indeed. However hard we may look, we shall not find here any serious divergence of principle. In general, Comrade Trotsky’s great mistake, his mistake of principle, lies in the fact that by raising the question of “principle” at this time he is dragging back the Party and the Soviet power. We have, thank heaven, done with principles and have gone on to practical business. We chatted about principles—rather more than we should have—at the Smolny. Today, three years later, we have decrees on all points of the production problem, and on many of its components; but such is the sad fate of our decrees: they are signed, and then we ourselves forget about them and fail to carry them out. Meanwhile, arguments about principles and differences of principle are invented. I shall later on quote a decree dealing with the trade unions’ role in production, a decree all of us, including myself, I confess, have forgotten.

The actual differences, apart from those I have listed, really have nothing to do with general principles. I have had to enumerate my “differences” with Comrade Trotsky because, with such a broad theme as “The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions”, he has, I am quite sure, made a number of mistakes bearing on the very essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But, this apart, one may well ask, why is it that we cannot work together, as we so badly need to do? It is because of our different approach to the mass, the different way of winning it over and keeping in touch with it. That is the whole point. And this makes the trade union a very peculiar institution, which is set up under capitalism, which inevitably exists in the transition from capitalism to communism, and whose future is a question mark. The time when the trade unions are actually called into question is a long way off: it will be up to our grandchildren to discuss that. What matters now is how to approach the mass, to establish contact with it and win it over, and how to get the intricate transmission system working (how to run the dictatorship of the proletariat). Note that when I speak oI the intricate transmission system I do not mean the machinery of the Soviets. What it may have in the way of intricacy of transmission comes under a special head. I have only been considering, in principle and in the abstract, class relations in capitalist society, which consists of a proletariat, a non-proletarian mass of working people, a petty bourgeoisie and a bourgeoisie. This alone yields an extremely complicated transmission system owing to what has been created by capitalism, quite apart from any red-tape in the Soviet administrative machinery. And that is the main point to be considered in analysing the difficulties of the trade unions’ “task”. Let me say this again: the actual differences do not lie where Comrade Trotsky sees them but in the question of how to approach the mass, win it over, and keep in touch with it. I must say that had we made a detailed, even if small-scale, study of our own experience and practices, we should have managed to avoid the hundreds of quite unnecessary “differences” and errors of principle in which Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet abounds. Some of his theses, for instance, polemicise against “Soviet trade-unionism”. As if we hadn’t enough trouble already, a new bogey has been invented. Who do you think it is? Comrade Ryazanov, of all people. I have known him for twenty odd years. You have known him less than that, but equally as well by his work. You are very well aware that assessing slogans is not one of his virtues, which he undoubtedly has. Shall we then produce theses to show that “Soviet trade-unionism” is just something that Comrade Ryazanov happened to say with little relevance? Is that being serious? If it is, we shall end up with having “Soviet trade unionism”, “Soviet anti-peace-signing”, and what not! A Soviet “ism” could be invented on every single point. ( Ryazanov : “Soviet anti-Brestism.”) Exactly, “Soviet anti Brestism”.

While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. ( Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets, [3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it . We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.

I shall have more to say about this coalescing later on. But the word itself shows that it is a mistake to conjure up an enemy in the shape of “Soviet trade-unionism”, for “coalescing” implies the existence of distinct things that have yet to be coalesced: “coalescing” implies the need to be able to use measures of the state power to protect the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat from that very same state power. When the coalescing has produced coalescence and integration , we shall meet in congress for a business-like discussion of actual experience, instead of “disagreements” on principle or theoretical reasoning in the abstract. There is an equally lame attempt to find differences of principle with Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky, whom Comrade Trotsky treats as trade union “bureaucrats”—I shall later on say which side in this controversy tends to be bureaucratic. We all know that while Comrade Ryazanov may love a slogan, and must have one which is all but an expression of principle, it is not one of Comrade Tomsky’s many vices. I think, therefore, that it would be going a bit too far to challenge Comrade Tomsky to a battle of principles on this score (as Comrade Trotsky has done). I am positively astonished at this. One would have thought that we had grown up since the days when we all sinned a great deal in the way of factional, theoretical and various other disagreements—although we naturally did some good as well. It is time we stopped inventing and blowing up differences of principle and got down to practical work. I never knew that Tomsky was eminently a theoretician or that he claimed to be one; it may be one of his failings, but that is something else again. Tomsky, who has been working very smoothly with the trade union- movement, must in his position provide a reflection of this complex transition—whether he should do so consciously or unconsciously is quite another matter and I am not saying that he has always done it consciously—so that if something is hurting the mass, and they do not know what it is, and he does not know what it is ( applause , laughter ) but raises a howl, I say that is not a failing but should be put down to his credit. I am quite sure that Tomsky has many partial theoretical mistakes. And if we all sat down to a table and started thoughtfully writing resolutions or theses, we should correct them all; we might not even bother to do that because production work is more interesting than the rectifying of minute theoretical disagreements.

I come now to “industrial democracy”, shall I say, for Bukharin’s benefit. We all know that everyone has his weak points, that even big men have little weak spots, and this also goes for Bukharin. He seems to be incapable of resisting any little word with a flourish to it. He seemed to derive an almost sensuous pleasure from writing the resolution on industrial democracy at the Central Committee Plenum on December 7. But the closer I look at this “industrial democracy”, the more clearly I see that it is half-baked and theoretically false. It is nothing but a hodge-podge. With this as an example, let me say once again, at a Party meeting at least: “Comrade N. I. Bukharin, the Republic, theory and you yourself will benefit from less verbal extravagance.” ( Applause .) Industry is indispensable. Democracy is a category proper only to the political sphere. There can be no objection to the use of this word in speeches or articles. An article takes up and clearly expresses one relationship and no more. But it is quite strange to hear you trying to turn this into a thesis, and to see you wanting to coin it into a slogan, uniting the “ayes” and the “nays”; it is strange to hear you say, like Trotsky, that the Party will have “to choose between two trends”. I shall deal separately with whether the Party must do any “choosing” and who is to blame for putting the Party in this position of having to “choose”. Things being what they are, we say: “At any rate, see that you choose fewer slogans, like ’industrial democracy’, which contain nothing but confusion and are theoretically wrong.” Both Trotsky and Bukharin failed to think out this term theoretically and ended up in confusion. “Industrial democracy” suggests things well beyond the circle of ideas with which they were carried away. They wanted to lay greater emphasis and focus attention on industry. It is one thing to emphasise something in an article or speech; it is quite another to frame it into a thesis and ask the Party to choose, and so I say: cast your vote against it, because it is confusion. Industry is indispensable, democracy is not. Industrial democracy breeds some utterly false ideas. The idea of one-man management was advocated only a little while ago. We must not make a mess of things and confuse people: how do you expect them to know when you want democracy, when one-man management, and when dictatorship. But on no account must we renounce dictatorship either—I hear Bukharin behind me growling: “Quite right.” ( Laughter . Applause .)

But to go on. Since September we have been talking about switching from the principle of priority to that of equalisation, and we have said as much in the resolution of the all-Party conference, which was approved by the Central Committee. [4] The question is not an easy one, because we find that we have to combine equalisation with priority, which are incompatible. But after all we do have some knowledge of Marxism and have learned how and when opposites can and must be combined; and what is most important is that in the three and a half years of our revolution we have actually combined opposites again and again.

The question obviously requires thoughtfulness and circumspection. After all, we did discuss these questions of principle at those deplorable plenary meetings of the Central Committee [4b] —which yielded the groups of seven and eight, and Comrade Bukharin’s celebrated “buffer group” [6] —and we did establish that there was no easy transition from the priority principle to that of equalisation. We shall have to put in a bit of effort to implement the decision of the September Conference. After all, these opposite terms can be combined either into a cacophony or a symphony. Priority implies preference for one industry out of a group of vital industries because of its greater urgency. What does such preference entail? How great can it be? This is a difficult question, and I must say that it will take more than zeal to solve it; it may even take more than a heroic effort on the part of a man who is possibly endowed with many excellent qualities and who will do wonders on the right job; this is a very peculiar matter and calls for the correct approach. And so if we are to raise this question of priority and equalisation we must first of all give it some careful thought, but that is just what we fail to find in Comrade Trotsky’s work; the further he goes in revising his original theses, the more mistakes he makes. Here is what we find in his latest theses:

“The equalisation line should be pursued in the sphere of consumption , that is, the conditions of the working people’s existence as individuals. In the sphere of production , the principle of priority will long remain decisive for us”. . . (thesis 41, p. 31 of Trotsky’s pamphlet).

This is a real theoretical muddle. It is all wrong. Priority is preference, but it is nothing without preference in consumption. If all the preference I get is a couple of ounces of bread a day I am not likely to be very happy. The preference part of priority implies preference in consumption as well. Otherwise, priority is a pipe dream, a fleeting cloud, and we are, after all, materialists. The workers are also materialists; if you say shock work, they say, let’s have the bread, and the clothes, and the beef. That is the view we now take, and have always taken, in discussing these questions time without number with reference to various concrete matters in the Council of Defence, [7] when one would say: “I’m doing shock work”, and would clamour for boots, and another: “I get the boots, otherwise your shock workers won’t hold out, and all your priority will fizzle out.”

We find, therefore, that in the theses the approach to equalisation and priority is basically wrong. What is more, it is a retreat from what has actually been achieved and tested in practice. We can’t have that; it will lead to no good.

Then there is the question of “coalescing “. The best thing to do about “coalescing” right now is to keep quiet. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. Why so? It is because we have got down to coalescing in practice; there is not a single large gubernia economic council, no major department of the Supreme Economic Council, the People’s Commissariat for Communications, etc., where something is not being coalesced in practice. But are the results all they should be? Ay, there’s the rub. Look at the way coalescence has actually been carried out, and what it has produced. There are countless decrees introducing coalescence in the various institutions. But we have yet to make a business-like study of our own practical experience; we have yet to go into the actual results of all this; we have yet to discover what a certain type of coalescence has produced in a particular industry, what happened when member X of the gubernia trade union council held post Y in the gubernia economic council, how many months he was at it, etc. What we have not failed to do is to invent a disagreement on coalescence as a principle, and make a mistake in the process, but then we have always been quick at that sort of thing; but we were not up to the mark when it came to analysing and verifying our own experience. When we have congresses of Soviets with committees not only on the application of the better-farming law in the various agricultural areas but also on coalescence and its results in the Saratov Gubernia flour-milling industry, the Petrograd metal industry, the Donbas coal industry, etc., and when these committees, having mustered the facts, declare: “We have made a study of so and so”, then I shall say: “Now we have got down to business, we have finally grown up.” But could anything be more erroneous and deplorable than the fact that we are being presented with “theses” splitting hairs over the principle of coalescence, after we have been at it for three years? We have taken the path of coalescence, and I am sure it was the right thing to do, but we have not yet made an adequate study of the results of our experience. That is why keeping quiet is the only common sense tactics on the question of coalescence.

A study must be made of practical experience. I have signed decrees and resolutions containing instructions on practical coalescence, and no theory is half so important as practice. That is why when I hear: “Let’s discuss ’coalescence’”, I say: “Let’s analyse what we have done.” There is no doubt that we have made many mistakes. It may well be that a great part of our decrees need amending. I accept that, for I am not in the least enamoured of decrees. But in that case let us have some practical proposals as to what actually has to be altered. That would be a business-like approach. That would not be a waste of time. That would not lead to bureaucratic projecteering But I find that that is exactly what’s wrong with Trotsky’s “Practical Conclusions”, Part VI of his pamphlet. He says that from one-third to one-half of the members of the All Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Presidium of the Supreme Eccnomic Council should serve on both bodies, and from one-half to two-thirds, on the collegiums, etc. Why so? No special reason, just “rule of thumb”. It is true, of course, that rule of thumb is frequently used to lay down similar proportions in our decrees, but then why is it inevitable in decrees? I hold no brief for all decrees as such and have no intention of making them appear better than they actually are. Quite often rule of thumb is used in them to fix such purely arbitrary proportions as one-half or one-third of the total number of members, etc. When a decree says that, it means: try doing it this way, and later on we shall assess the results of your “try out”. We shall later sort out the results. After sorting them out, we shall move on. We are working on coalescence and we expect to improve it because we are becoming more efficient and practical-minded.

But I seem to have lapsed into “production propaganda”. That can’t be helped. It is a question that needs dealing with in any discussion of the role of the trade unions in production.

My next question will therefore be that of production propaganda. This again is a practical matter and we approach it accordingly. Government agencies have already been set up to conduct production propaganda. I can’t tell whether they are good or had; they have to be tested and there’s no need for any “theses” on this subject at all.

If we take a general view of the part trade unions have to play in industry, we need not, in this question of democracy, go beyond the usual democratic practices. Nothing will come of such tricky phrases as “industrial democracy”, for they are all wrong. That is the first point. The second is production propaganda. The agencies are there. Trotsky’s theses deal with production propaganda. That is quite useless, because in this case theses are old hat. We do not know as yet whether the agencies are good or bad. But we can tell after testing them in action. Let us do some studying and polling. Assuming, let us say, that a congress has 10 committees with 10 men on each, let us ask: “You have been dealing with production propaganda, haven ’t you? What are the results?” Having made a study of this, we should reward those who have done especially well, and discard what has proved unsuccessful. We do have some practical experience; it may not be much but it is there; yet we are being dragged away from it and back to these “theses on principles”. This looks more like a “reactionary” movement than “trade unionism”.

There is then the third point, that of bonuses. Here is the role and task of the trade unions in production: distribution of bonuses in kind . A start on it has been made. Things have been set in motion. Five hundred thousand poods of grain had been allocated for the purpose, and one hundred and seventy thousand has been distributed. How well and how correctly, I cannot tell. The Council of People’s Commissars was told that they were not making a good job of this distribution, which turned out to be an additional wage rather than a bonus. This was pointed out by officials of the trade unions and the People’s Commissariat for Labour. We appointed a commission to look into the matter but that has not yet been done. One hundred and seventy thousand poods of grain has been given away, but this needs to be done in such a way as to reward those who display the heroism, the zeal, the talent, and the dedication of the thrifty manager, in a word, all the qualities that Trotsky extols. But the task now is not to extol this in theses but to provide the bread and the beef. Wouldn’t it be better, for instance, to deprive one category of workers of their beef and give it as a bonus to workers designated as “shock” workers? We do not renounce that kind of priority. That is a priority we need. Let us take a closer look at our practices in the application of priority.

The fourth point is disciplinary courts. I hope Comrade Bukharin will not take offence if I say that without disciplinary courts the role of the trade unions in industry, “industrial democracy “, is a mere trifle. But the fact is that there is nothing at all about this in your theses. “Great grief!” is therefore the only thing that can be said about Trotsky’s theses and Bukharin’s attitude, from the standpoint of principle, theory and practice.

I am confirmed in this conclusion when I say to myself: yours is not a Marxist approach to the question. This quite apart from the fact that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in the theses It is not a Marxist approach to the evaluation of the “role and tasks of the trade unions”, because such a broad subject cannot be tackled without giving thought to the peculiar political aspects of the present situation. After all, Comrade Bukharin and I did say in the resolution of the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. on trade unions that politics is the most concentrated expression of economics.

If we analysed the current political situation, we might say that we were going through a transition period within a transition period. The whole of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a transition period, but we now have, you might say, a heap of new transition periods: the demobilisation of the army, the end of the war, the possibility of having a much longer breathing space in peace than before, and a more solid transition from the war front to the labour front. This—and this alone—is causing a change in the attitude of the proletarian class to the peasant class. What kind of change is it? Now this calls for a close examination, but nothing of the sort follows from your theses. Until we have taken this close look, we must learn to wait. The people are overweary, considerable stocks that had to be used for certain priority industries have been so used; the proletariat’s attitude to the peasantry is undergoing a change. The war weariness is terrible, and the needs have increased, but production has increased insufficiently or not at all. On the other hand, as I said in my report to the Eighth Congress of Soviets, our application of coercion was correct and successful whenever we had been able to back it up from the start with persuasion. I must say that Trotsky and Bukharin have entirely failed to take account of this very important consideration.

Have we laid a sufficiently broad and solid base of persuasion for all these new production tasks? No, indeed, we have barely started doing it. We have not yet made the masses a party to them. Now I ask you, can the masses tackle these new assignments right away? No, they cannot, because while there is now no need for special propaganda on the question of, say, whether Wrangel the landowner should be overthrown or whether any sacrifices should be spared for the purpose, we have just started to work on this question of the role of the trade unions in production, and I mean the business aspect of the matter and not the question of “principle”, the reasoning about “Soviet trade-unionism” and such like trifles; we have just set up the agency for production propaganda, but we have as yet no experience. We have introduced the payment of bonuses in kind, but we lack the experience. We have set up the disciplinary courts, but we are not yet aware of the results. Still, from the political standpoint it is the preparedness of the masses that is crucial. Has the question been prepared, studied, weighed, and considered from this angle? No, far from it. And that is a basic, deep-going and dangerous political mistake, because if ever there was need to act according to the rule of measuring your cloth seven times before cutting it once, it is in this question. We find instead that the cutting has been started in earnest without a single measure having been taken. We are told that “the Party must choose between two trends”, but the false slogan of “industrial democracy “ was invented without a single measuring.

We must try to understand the meaning of this slogan, especially in the present political situation, when the masses are confronted with bureaucratic practices in visual form, and when we have the question itself on the agenda. Comrade Trotsky says in his theses that on the question of workers’ democracy it remains for the Congress to “enter it unanimously in the record”. That is not correct. There is more to it than an entry in the record; an entry in the record fixes what has been fully weighed and measured, whereas the question of industrial democracy is far from having been fully weighed, tried and tested. Just think how the masses may interpret this slogan of “industrial democracy”.

“We, the rank and file who work among the masses, say that there is need for new blood, that things must be corrected and the bureaucrats ousted, and here you are beating about the bush, talking about getting on with production and displaying democracy in achieving success in production; we refuse to get on with production under such a bureaucratic set-up of central and other boards, we want a different one.” You have not given the masses a chance to discuss things, to see the point, and to think it over; you have not allowed the Party to gain fresh experience but are already acting in haste, overdoing it, and producing formulas which are theoretically false. Just think how this mistake will be further amplified by unduly zealous functionaries! A political leader is responsible not only for the quality of his leadership but also for the acts of those he leads. He may now and again be unaware of what they are about, he may often wish they had not done some thing, but the responsibility still falls on him.

I now come to the November 9 and December 7 plenary meetings of the Central Committee, which gave expression to all these mistakes in action, rather than in logical categories, premises and theoretical reasoning. This threw the Centrai Committee into confusion; it is the first time this has happened in our Party’s history, in time of revolution, and it is dangerous. The crux was that there was a division, there was the “buffer” group of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky and Serebryakov, which did the most harm and created the most confusion.

You will recall the story of Glavpolitput [8] and Tsektran. [9] The resolution of the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. in April 1920 said that Glavpolitput was being set up as a “temporary” institution, and that conditions should be brought back to normal “as soon as possible”. In September you read, “Return to normal conditions”. [9b] The plenary meeting was held in November (November 9), and Trotsky came up with his theses and ideas about trade-unionism. How ever fine some of his points about production propaganda may be, he should have been told that all this was neither here nor there, quite beside the mark, and a step backward it is something the C.C. should not be dealing with at present. Bukharin says: “It is very good.” It may be very good, but that is no answer to the question. After a heated debate, a resolution is adopted by 10 to 4 saying in a polite and comradely way that Tsektran has itself “already got down to . . . strengthening and developing methods of proletarian democracy within the union”. It adds that Tsektran must “take an active part in the general work of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, being incorporated in it on an egual footing with other trade union bodies”.

What is the gist of the Central Committee’s decision? It is obviously this: “Comrades of Tsektran! You must do more than go through the motions of carrying out Congress and C.C. decisions, you must actually do so to help all trade unions by your work, wipe out every trace of red tape, favouritism, arrogance, the we-are-better-than-you attitude, and boasts of being richer and getting more aid.”

We then get down to brass tacks. A commission is set up, and the names of its members are published. Trotsky walks out, refuses to serve on the commission, and disrupts its work. What are his reasons? There is only one. Lutovinov is apt to play at opposition. That is true, and that also goes for Osinsky. Frankly speaking, it is not a pleasant game. But do you call that a reason? Osinsky was making an excellent job of the seed campaign. The thing to do was to work with him, in spite of his “opposition campaign”, for this business of disrupting the work of a commission is bureaucratic, un-Soviet, un-socialist, incorrect and politically harmful. Such methods are doubly incorrect and politically harmful at a time when there is need to separate the wheat from the chaff within the “opposition”. When Osinsky conducts an “opposition campaign”, I tell him: “This is a harmful campaign”, but it is a pleasure to see him conduct the seed campaign. I shall not deny that, like Ishchenko and Shlyapnikov, Lutovinov is making a mistake in his “opposition campaign”, but that is no reason to disrupt the work of a commission.

What did the commission in fact signify? It signified transition to practical work from intellectualist talk about sterile disagreements. What the commission was due to discuss and deal with was production propaganda, bonuses, and disciplinary courts. It was then that Comrade Bukharin, the head of the “buffer group”, together with Preobrazhensky and Serebryakov, seeing the Central Committee dangerously divided, set out to create a buffer, one that I find difficult to describe in parliamentary terms. If I could draw cartoons as well as Comrade Bukharin does, I would depict him as a man pouring a bucket of kerosene on the flames, and give the following caption: “Buffer kerosene”. Comrade Bukharin wanted to create something, and his intentions were no doubt most sincere and entirely in the “buffer” spirit. But the buffer failed to materialise; the upshot was that he failed to take account of the political situation and, what is more, made some theoretical mistakes.

Should all such disputes have been brought up for broad discussion? Was it worth going into these trifles? Was it worth wasting the few precious weeks before a Party congress? Wecould have used the timo to analyse and study the question of bonuses, disciplinary courts and coalescence. Those are the questions we could have given a practical solution to in the C.C. commission. If Comrade Bukharin wished to create a buffer, instead of giving a display of barking up the wrong tree, he should have demanded and insisted that Comrade Trotsky remained on the commission. If he had said and done that, we should have been on the right track, with the commission looking into the practical aspects of such things as one-man management, democracy, appointees, etc.

But to go on. By December (the December 7 Plenary Meeting), we were already faced with this flare-up of the watermen, which intensified the conflict, and as a result there were now eight votes in the Central Committee to our seven. Comrade Bukharin, in an effort to bring about a “reconciliation” through the use of his “buffer”, hastily wrote the “theoretical” part of the December plenum’s resolution, but with the commission a shambles, nothing, of course, could come of it.

Where did Glavpolitput and Tsektran err? Certainly not in their use of coercion; that goes to their credit. Their mistake was that they failed to switch to normal trade union work at the right time and without conflict, as the Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. required; they failed to adapt themselves to the trade unions and help them by meeting them on an equal footing. Heroism, zeal, etc., are the positive side of military experience; red-tape and arrogance are the negative side of the experience of the worst military types. Trotsky’s theses, whatever his intentions, do not tend to play up the best, but the worst in military experience. It must be borne in mind that a political leader is responsible not only for his own policy but also for the acts of those he leads.

The last thing I want to tell you about—something I called myself a fool for yesterday—is that I had altogether overlooked Comrade Rudzutak’s theses. His weak point is that he does not speak in ringing tones; he is not an impressive or eloquent speaker. He is liable to be overlooked. Unable to attend the meetings yesterday, I went through my material and found a printed leaflet issued for the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference, which was-held from November 2 to 6, 1920. [11] It is called: The Tasks of the Trade Unions in Production . Let me read it to you, it is not long. Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference The tasks of the trade unions in production (Theses Of Comrade Rudzutak’s Report)

1. Immediately after the October Revolution, the trade unions proved to be almost the only bodies which, while exercising workers’ control , were able and bound to undertake the work of organising and managing production . In that early period of the Soviet power, no state apparatus for the management of the national economy had yet been set up, while sabotage on the part of factory owners and senior technicians brought the working class squarely up against the task of safeguarding industry and getting the whole of the country’s economic apparatus back into normal running order.

2. In the subsequent period of the Supreme Economic Council’s work, when a considerable part of it consisted in liquidating private enterprises and organising state management to run them, the trade unions carried on this work jointly and side by side with the state economic management agencies .

This parallel set-up was explained and justified by the weakness of the state agencies; historically it was vindicated by the establishment of full contact between the trade unions and the economic management agencies.

3. The centre of gravity in the management of industry and the drafting of a production programme shifted to these agencies as a result of their administration, the gradual spread of their control over production and management and the-co-ordination of the several parts. In view of this, the work of the trade unions in organising production was reduced to participation in forming the collegiums of chief administrations, central boards, and factory managements.

4. At the present time, we are once again squarely faced with the question of establishing the closest possible ties between the economic agencies of the Soviet Republic and the trade unions, for the best use must be made of every working individual, and the whole mass of producers must be induced to take a conscious part in production, for the state apparatus of economic management, gradually gaining in size and complexity, has been transformed into a huge bureaucratic machine which is out of all proportion to the scale of industry, and is inevitably impelling the trade unions to take direct part in organising production not only through its men in the economic agencies but also as an organised whole.

5. While the Supreme Economic Council’s point of departure in drawing up an overall production programme is the availability of the material elements of production (raw materials, fuel, the state of machinery, etc.), the trade unions must look at it from the standpoint of organising labour for the tasks of production and its best use. Therefore, the overall production programme , in whole and in part , must be drawn up with the participation of the trade unions in order to combine the use of the material resources of production and manpower in the best possible way.

6. Only if the whole mass of those engaged in production consciously take a hand in establishing real labour discipline, fighting deserters from the labour front, etc., can these tasks be fulfilled. Bureaueratic methods and orders will not do; it must be brought home to each participant in production that his production tasks are appropriate and important; that each must take a hand not only in fulfilling his assignments, but also play an intelligent part in correcting any technical and organisational defects in the sphere of production.

The tasks of the trade unions in this sphere are tremendous. They must teach their members in each shop and in each factory to react to and take account of all defects in the use of manpower arising from improper handling of technical means or unsatisfactory management. The sum total of the experience gained by separate enterprises and industry as a whole must be used to combat red-tape, bureaucratic practices and carelessness.

7. In order to lay special emphasis on the importance of these production tasks, they must be organisationally worked into current operations. As the economic departments of the trade unions, which are being set up in pursuance of the decision of the Third All-Russia Congress, extend their activity, they must gradually explain and define the nature of all trade union work. Thus, in the present social conditions, when all of production is geared to the satisfaction of the working people’s needs, wage rates and bonuses must be closely tied in with and must depend on the extent to which the production plan is fulfilled . Bonuses in kind and partial payment of wages in kind must be gradually transformed into a system of workers’ supply which depends on the level of labour productivity.

8. Trade union work on these lines would, on the one hand, put an end to the existence of parallel bodies ( political departments , etc .) and, on the other, restore the close ties between the masses and the economic management agencies.

9. After the Third Congress, the trade unions largely failed to carry out their programme for participation in economic construction owing, first, to the military conditions , and second, to their organisational weakness and isolation from the administrative and practical work of the economic bodies.

10. In view of this, the trade unions should set themselves the following immediate practical tasks: a) the most active participation in solving production and management problems; b) direct participation, with the respective economic agencies, in setting up competent administrative bodies; c) careful consideration of the various types of management bodies , and their influence on production; d) unfailing participation in working out and laying down economic plans and production programmes; e) organisation of labour in accordance with the economic priorities; f) development of an extensive organization for production agitation and propaganda .

11. The economic departments of the trade unions and of their organisations must be actually transformed into powerful and expeditious levers for the trade unions’ systematic participation in organising production.

12. In the matter of providing workers with steady material supplies, the trade unions must shift their influence onto the distribution bodies of the Commissariat for Food , both local and central, taking a practical and business-like part and exercising controI in all the distributive bodies, and paying special attention to the activity of central and gubernia workers’ supply commissions .

13. In view of the fact that the narrow departmental interests of some chief administrations, central boards, etc., have plunged the so-called “priority” into a state of utter confusion, the trade unions must everywhere uphold the real order of economic priorities and review the existing system so as to determine them in accordance with the actual importance of the various industries and the availability of material resources in the country.

14. Special attention must be given to the so-called model group of factories to help them set an example through the organisation of efficient management, labour discipline and trade union activities.

15. In labour organisation, apart from the introduction of a harmonious wage-rate system and the overhaul of output rates, the trade unions should take a firm hand in fighting the various forms of labour desertion (absenteeism, lateness, etc.). The disciplinary courts, which have not received due attention until now, must be turned into a real means of combating breaches of proletarian labour discipline.

16. The economic departments must be entrusted with the fulfilment of these tasks and also the drafting of a practical plan for production propaganda and a number of measures to improve the economic condition of the workers. It is necessary, therefore, to authorise the economic department of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions to call a special All-Russia Conference of Economic Departments in the near future to discuss the practical problems of economic construction in connection with the world of state economic agencies.

I hope you see now why I called myself names. There you have a platform, and it is very much better than the one Comrade Trotsky wrote after a great deal of thinking, and the one Comrade Bukharin wrote (the December 7 Plenum resolution) without any thinking at all. All of us members of the Central Committee who have been out of touch with the trade Union movement for many years would profit from Comrade Rudzutak’s experience, and this also goes for Comrade Trotsky and Comrade Bukharin. The trade unions have adopted this platform.

We all entirely forgot about the disciplinary courts, but “industrial democracy”, without bonuses in kind or disciplinary courts, is nothing but empty talk.

I make a comparison between Rudzutak’s theses and those submitted by Trotsky to the Central Committee. At the end of thesis 5, I read:

“. . a reorganisation of the unions must be started right away, that is, a selection of functionaries must be above all made from precisely that angle”. . . .

There you have an example of the real bureaucratic approach: Trotsky and Krestinsky selecting the trade union “functionaries”!

Let me say this once again: here you have an explanation of Tsektran’s mistake. It was not wrong to use pressure; that goes to its credit. It made the mistake of failing to cope with the general tasks of all the trade unions, of failing to act itself and to help all the trade unions to employ the disciplinary comrades’ courts more correctly, swiftly and successfully. When I read about the disciplinary courts in Comrade Rudzutak’s theses it occurred to me that there might be a decree on this matter. And in fact there was. It is the Regulations Governing Workers’ Disciplinary Comrades’ Courts, issued on November 14, 1919 ( Collection of Statutes No. 537).

The trade unions have the key role in these courts I don’t know how good these courts are, how well they function, and whether they always function. A study of our own practical experience would be a great deal more useful than anything Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin have written.

Let me end by summing up everything there is on the question. I must say that it was a great mistake to put up these disagreements for broad Party discussion and the Party Congress. It was a political mistake. We should have had a business-like discussion in the commission, and only there, and would have in that case moved forward; as it is we are sliding back, and shall keep sliding back to abstract theoretical propositions for several weeks, instead of dealing with the problem in a business-like manner. Personally, I am sick and tired of it, and quite apart from my illness, it would give me great pleasure to get away from it all. I am prepared to seek refuge anywhere.

The net result is that there are a number of theoretical mistakes in Trotsky’s and Bukharin’s theses: they contain a number of things that are wrong in principle. Politically, the whole approach to the matter is utterly tactless. Comrade Trotsky’s “theses” are politically harmful. The sum and substance of his policy is bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions. Our Party Congress will, I am sure, condemn and reject it. ( Prolonged , stormy applause .)

[1] Lenin’s first speech to Party activists in the discussion of the role and tasks of the trade unions in socialist construction was delivered at the Bolshoi Theatre on December 30, 1920.

Trotsky had started the discussion in the Communist group of the Fifth All-Russia Trade Union Conference on November 3 with his call “to tighten the screws of War Communism” as opposed to the Party’s line to stimulate democratic activity in the trade unions.

The disagreements turned “on the different approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and keeping in touch with it” ( Lenin ). The disagreements in the group were brought before the Central Committee Plenary Meeting. But Trotsky’s December 24 speech before the delegates of the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets and trade union activists carried the issue outside the Central Committee. On December 25, he published his views in a pamphlet.

Lenin was against any discussion, believing that it distracted the Party’s attention and forces from the immediate tasks of fighting the economic dislocation and the famine. In his-speeches and articles— The Party Crisis and Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin —he put forward and developed a number of important principles underlying the trade unions’ role in the dictatorship of the proletariat and their tasks in socialist construction.

The discussion lasted more than two months. The overwhelming majority of the Party organisations approved Lenin’s platform and rejected the opposition’s. The results of the discussion were summed up at the Tenth Congress of the Party on March 8-16, 1921.

[2] On its agenda were the current tasks of economic construction and the question of the trade union movement. It defined the short-term economic tasks and stressed the need for the trade unions’ active participation in socialist construction. It adopted the following resolutions: “The Current Tasks of Econormic Construction” and “The Trade Unions and Their Organisation”. See K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh i resheniakh syezdov, konferentsi i plenumov TsK (The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and C.C Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954, pp. 477-90, 490-94).

[3] The reference is to the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, Red Army and Cossack Deputies held in Moscow on December 22-29, 1920. It was attended by 2,537 delegates, the greatest number ever. Of them 1,728 had voice and vote, and 809, voice only. Of the total number of delegates 91.7 per cent were Communists; 2.7, Communist sympathisers; 3.9, non-party people; 0.3, Mensheviks; 0.3, Bundists; 0.15, Left S.R.s; 0.15, anarchists, and 0.8, from other parties.

The Congress met at a time when the war against the foreign intervention and internal counter-revolution was coming to a end, and when the economic front stood out as “the main and most important one” ( Lenin ). On its agenda there were the following questions, the chief of which had been discussed beforehand by the Communist group: report on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars, electrification of Russia; rehabilitation of industry and transport; development of agricultural production and promotion of farming; efficiency of Soviet establishments and the struggle against bureaucratic practices. These problems were thrashed out in three sections: industry, agriculture and Soviet administration.

Lenin guided much of the work of the Congress. At the plenary meeting on December 22, he gave a report on the activity of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars, and on December 23, he summed up the debate. He spoke six times at the Communist group meetings on December 21, 22, 24 and 27 on the question of concessions and the draft law on measures to consolidate and develop peasant farming. By an overwhelming majority, the Congress adopted a resolution on Lenin’s report, approving the government’s activity, and rejected a draft resolution motioned by the other delegates.

The Congress adopted a plan for the electrification of the country (GOELRO), worked out on Lenin’s initiative and instructions. This was the first long-range economic plan of the Soviet state and Lenin called it “the second Party Programme”. He also wrote the resolution on Krzhizhanovsky’s report.

Another major question on the agenda was a draft law on measures to consolidate and develop peasant farming, which had been adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars on December 14, 1920. Lenin stressed that the law was “a kind of a focus around which hundreds of decrees and bills of the Soviet power were grouped”. Lenin took part in the discussion of its principal clauses by the non-Party peasant delegates to the Congress at a special meeting on December 22, and by the Communist group on December 24 and 27. The draft law was adopted unanimously.

The Congress passed a comprehensive resolution to improve and reorganise the entire Soviet apparatus as required by the transition to peaceful economic construction. It regulated relations between central and local organs of power and administration. The Congress also discussed the reorganisation of the whole system of economic management in accordance with the new economic tasks, and approved a new statute of the Council of Labour and Defence.

It instituted the Order of the Red Banner of Labour as an award for dedication, initiative, efficiency and hard work in solving economic tasks.

[4] The reference is to the resolution of the Ninth All-Russia Conference of the R.C.P.(B.), “The Current Tasks of Party Organisation”. See K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiakh . . . (The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and C.C. Plenary Meetings, Part 1, 1954, pp. 506-12).

[4b] The reference is to the November and December plenary meeting of the Central Committee in 1920. For the text of their resolutions see Pravda No. 255 of November 13, and No. 281 of December 14, and also Izvestia of the C.C., R.C.P. [5] No. 26 of December 20.

[5] Izvestia of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party was an information organ dealing with Party problems. It was published under a resolution of the Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) as a weekly supplement to Pravda from May 28, 1919, and as an independent organ from October 1920.

In 1929, it was transformed into a fortnightly, Partiinoye Stroitelstvo ( Party Construction ), and in June 1946 renamed Partiinaya Zhizn ( Party Life ).

[6] The “ buffer group ” took shape during the trade union discussion in 1920-21. It was headed by N. I. Bukharin and included Y. Larin, Y. A. Preobrazhensky, L. P. Serebryakov, G. Y. Sokolnikov, V. N. Yakovleva and others. They tried to reconcile the differences between Lenin and Trotsky’s views, acting as a “buffer” in disagreements on the question of the role and tasks of the trade unions. In fact Bukharin attacked Lenin and defended Trotsky.

Lenin characterised the “buffer” group and its anti-Party views in his article, “The Party Crisis”, in the pamphlet, Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin , and elsewhere.

[7] The Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defence was set up by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee on November 30, 1918, to implement its September 2, 1918 decree which proclaimed the Soviet Republic a military camp. Lenin was appointed its Chairman. It was vested with extraordinary powers in mobilising the resources of the Soviet state for defence in that exceptionally difficult period.

The Council was the Republic’s chief military-economic and planning centre during the intervention and Civil War and also controlled the activity of the Revolutionary Military Council and other military organs. Its decrees were binding on all Soviet citizens, as well as on central and local agencies. Early in April 1920, it was reorganised into the Council of Labour and Defence (C.L.D.) ( Soviet Truda i Oborony —STO), and under a decision of the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1920 it began to operate as a government commission responsible for co-ordinating the work of all economic departments. It was abolished in 1937.

[8] Glavpolitput —the Chief Political Department of the People’s Commissariat for Communications—was formed as a provisional organ under the direct leadership of the Party’s Central Committee in February 1919, and in January 1920 it was renamed the Chief Political Administration. It took extraordinary measures to rehabilitate the railways that had been ruined in the imperialist war and the Civil War, to improve Party and political work among railway workers, and to strengthen and stimulate the activity of the railwaymen’s trade union and make it an instrument for the further development of the railways. It introduced military discipline on the railways to gear them to the war effort. The measures effected by Glavpolitput saved the railways from utter ruin, but produced bureaucratic and undemocratic practices in the trade unions and a tendency to lose touch with the masses.

It was abolished by a Central Committee decision on December 7, 1920, at the end of the Civil War and the start of peaceful development.

[9] Tsektran —the Central Committee of the Joint Trade Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers. In September 1920, the two unions were merged to set up a strong centralised administration capable of tackling the tasks of rapidly rehabilitating transport, whose stoppages tended to paralyse the national economy. Its extraordinary powers and military methods of work, which sprang from the enormity of the tasks before it, bred bureaucratic practices, the appointments system, administration by injunction, etc. The plenary meetings of the C.C. on November 8 and December 7, 1920, condemned Tsektran’s methods and adopted a decision to incorporate it into the general system of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions on a par with other unions. Tsektrall was advised to change its methods, develop trade union democracy, make all trade union bodies elective, reduce the appointments system, etc. The First All-Russia Congress of Transport Workers in March 1921 called by the Central Committee of the Party expelled those communists who opposed this reform from the Tsektran leadership and outlined new methods of work.

[9b] See Izvestia of the C.C., R.C.P. No. 26, p. 2, the Resolution of the September Plenum of the C.C., Paragraph 3, which said: “The C.C. further believes that there has been a great improvement in the grave situation in the transport workers’ unions, which produced Glavpolitput and Politvod, [10] as temporary levers for assisting and organising the work. Therefore, incorporation of these organisations in the union, as union agencies being adapted to and absorbed by the union apparatus, can and must now proceed.”

[10] Politvod —the Chief Political Administration of Water Transport of the People’s Commissariat for Communications—was set up inApril 1920 as an agency of Glavpolitput to carry on political education among the workers and exercise political control over the technical and administrative personnel; to put water transport on its feet as soon as possible; to stimulate higher productivity and improve discipline. It was dissolved in December 1920.

[11] The Party wanted the trade unions’ work reorganised in accordance with the tasks of peaceful socialist construction, democracy developed and military methods of administration abolished. This was opposed by Trotsky, who demanded, at the Communist group meeting on November 3, a “shake-up” of the trade unions. He wanted “the screws tightened” and the trade unions governmentalised immediately. He disagreed on the “approach to the mass, the way of winning it over, and keeping in touch with it”. His speech started the Party discussion on the trade unions, but the Communist delegates rejected his demands, for their realisation would have abolished the trade unions and undermined the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is why his theses were discussed by the Party Central Committee. At the November 8 C.C. Plenary Meeting, Lenin came out with his own theses which, when put to the vote, won 8 votes, as against 7 for Trotsky’s.

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• Demographics

Moscow, like other international urban areas , is decentralizing, despite considerable barriers. The expansion will lead to even more decentralization, which is likely to lead to less time "stuck in traffic" and more comfortable lifestyles. Let's hope that Russia's urban development policies, along with its plans to restore population growth, will lead to higher household incomes and much improved economic performance.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “ War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life ”

Note 1: The 23 ward (ku) area of Tokyo is the geography of the former city of Tokyo, which was abolished in the 1940s. There is considerable confusion about the geography of Tokyo. For example, the 23 ward area is a part of the prefecture of Tokyo, which is also called the Tokyo Metropolis, which has led some analysts to think of it as the Tokyo metropolitan area (labor market area). In fact, the Tokyo metropolitan area, variously defined, includes, at a minimum the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama with some municipalities in Gunma, Ibaraki and Tochigi. The metropolitan area contains nearly three times the population of the "Tokyo Metropolis."

Note 2: The expansion area (556 square miles or 1,440 square kilometers) has a current population of 250,000.

Note 3: Includes all residents in suburban districts with at least part of their population in the urban area.

Note 4: Urban area data not yet available.

Photo: St. Basil's Cathedral (all photos by author)

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Road in city area.

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Moscow is bursting Noblesse

Moscow is bursting Noblesse at the seams. The core city covers more than 420 square miles (1,090 kilometers), and has a population of approximately 11.5 million people. With 27,300 residents per square mile (10,500 per square kilometer), Moscow is one percent more dense than the bleach anime watch city of New York, though Moscow covers 30 percent more land. The 23 ward area of Tokyo (see Note) is at least a third more dense, though Moscow's land area is at least half again as large as Tokyo. All three core areas rely

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Russians seeing the light while Western elites are bickering?

What an extremely interesting analysis - well done, Wendell.

It is also extremely interesting that the Russian leadership is reasonably pragmatic about urban form, in contrast to the "planners" of the post-rational West.

An acquaintance recently sent me an article from "The New Yorker", re Moscow's traffic problems.

The article "abstract" is HERE (but access to the full article requires subscription)

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gessen

One classic quote worth taking from it, is: "People will endure all manner of humiliation to keep driving".

I do find it odd that the "New Yorker" article author says nothing at all about the rail transit system Moscow had, on which everyone was obliged to travel, under Communism. It can't surely have vaporised into thin air?

Moscow is a classic illustration of just how outmoded rails are, and how important "automobility" is, when the auto supplants rails so rapidly than even when everybody did travel on rails up to a certain date, and the road network dates to that era, when nobody was allowed to own a car; an article written just 2 decades later does not even mention the rail transit system, other than to criticise the mayor for "failing to invest in a transit system".......!!!!!!!!

This is also a give-away of "The New Yorker's" inability to shake off the modern PC ideology on rails vs cars.

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