The overthrow of the autocracy in February 1917 and the transfer of power into the hands of the Provisional Government served as a powerful impetus for increasing the social activity of the masses. One manifestation of this process was the emergence of workers' control bodies. At small and medium-sized enterprises, their function was performed by factory and factory committees - the so-called factory committees. In large factories, special control commissions were created. What was their activity?
Another Bolshevik Initiative
The competence of such groups included control not only over the technical side of production, but also over the financial and commercial activities of the owners of the enterprise. The powers of members of the commission extended to such important aspects of factory life as hiring and dismissing personnel, receiving orders, labor protection, and much more.
In the period following the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks were the most active propagandists of the introduction of workers' control in enterprises. Their leader V.I. Lenin, in one of his articles that appeared in those days, wrote that the creation of various production committees and commissions at enterprises is as necessary as the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the country. According to him, the slogan "Work control!" should be perceived as a guide to action by the whole mass of working people.
The expansion of the authority of factory committees
After the October armed coup and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the scope of activity of factory committees and working commissions expanded significantly. The previously assigned responsibilities were supplemented by preparations for the widespread nationalization of enterprises and transport, as well as their transfer to the rails of a planned economy.
Already in November 1917, that is, immediately after the seizure of power, at the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks announced their intention everywhere to establish working control in enterprises. This was a very important decision, since its implementation legally assigned their authority to the factory committees.
Discussions at the meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
This initiative was further developed at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Commission (VTsIK), held on November 14 of the same year. It adopted the "Decree on working control." His approval was preceded by a discussion that resulted in a heated discussion between representatives of the Bolsheviks and their opponents - the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
As a result of the vote, the supporters of the Leninist position won (24 votes to 10). Characteristically, the main argument voiced in the speeches of their opponents was the fear that the adoption of the document would give workers a reason to feel like the full owners of the enterprises. As you know, subsequently it was this principle that formed the basis of the communist ideology and was propagated in various ways by party propagandists.
The main provisions of the November decree
Having received its legal justification in November 1917, working control was established both over the production process itself and over the acquisition of raw materials, and if necessary, its sale. In addition, it covered finance, as well as issues related to the supply of food for workers, employees and their families in the most difficult post-revolutionary years.
The Decree adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 14, 1917 specified in detail the procedure for the formation of regulatory bodies, which, in addition to factory committees and special commissions, were also councils of elders. All these structures were created on an elective basis. According to the adopted regulation, they should also include employees, the number of which depended on the quantitative ratio of workers and engineering personnel at this enterprise.
In addition, the same document prescribed the creation in all cities and provinces of local Councils of workers' control. By their administrative structure, these newly formed bodies completely reproduced the structure of the Soviets of Workers 'and Peasants' Deputies. It was emphasized that the decisions of any local working committee are binding on the owners of enterprises and canceled only on the basis of an order from a higher control body.
Power support for production control
The introduction of labor control was only a little ahead of the creation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) in the country, an organization that, among other things, exerted pressure on those business owners who did not want to comply with the requirements of the working committees. In the period preceding the complete nationalization of industrial enterprises, there were often cases when their owners refused to submit technical and financial documentation to the regulatory authorities.
According to the laws established by the Bolsheviks, such actions were considered as sabotage, and the perpetrators were to be arrested and then brought to trial. Thus, not wanting to obey the demands of their workers, the factory owners risked falling into the hands of Chekists, whose style of communication with socially alien elements was well known.
Additional functions of control organs
The adoption of the law on workers' control in production pursued an extremely important goal - to suppress attempts by the previous owners to close or sell their company, and transfer all capital abroad. In addition, the regulatory authorities did not allow them to evade compliance with the new labor legislation. It was also assumed that the workers' committees would be able to ensure proper order at the enterprises and prevent the anarchist-minded part of the workers from plundering property under the pretext that they are now “true masters of life”.
Unforeseen complications
That is how the creators of the Decree on the establishment of working committees at enterprises saw the future. However, real life has made adjustments to their plans. Firstly, the process outlined by them began to develop spontaneously and at a number of enterprises led to the most unexpected results.
There are known examples of how committee members, not only confining themselves to the control of the work process and cash flow, simply drove the former owner out of the gate, and tried to carry out administrative functions themselves. However, it soon became clear that they were not able to establish output, as a result of which the execution of orders was disrupted and all remained without a salary, and therefore without a livelihood. I had to go to bow to the former owner, tearfully repent before him and ask him to return back. In most cases, the owners again took their places, but at the same time set the conditions, the implementation of which impeded the action of the control bodies.
Decree not meeting expectations
Analyzing the results of the adoption of the Decree on working committees, researchers come to the conclusion that it did not have any significant impact on the situation in the country. Control in enterprises was carried out in most cases by persons who did not have sufficient training, and therefore were extremely incompetent and unable to make any constructive decisions.
But this document went down in history mainly because it was often an occasion for the nationalization of enterprises conducted on the pretext that the owner allegedly avoids the execution of decisions of control committees. However, this was only at first. Very soon, the Bolsheviks felt themselves the rightful masters of life and waved their hand at external conventions. They simply took the property from the previous owners, and they themselves were "let into consumption" as "bourgeois and counter."
In the mid-1920s, when the “successors of the Lenin case” finally seized the monopoly on power, the so-called partocratic centralism was established in the country, and the workers' control committees became dependent on the Council of People's Commissars and trade union officials. Since that time, they have completely lost their meaning.
Syndicalism Theory
On the basis of those characteristic features that were inherent in the institute of workers' control, the conclusion suggests itself that such a scheme corresponds not so much to the principles of socialism as to syndicalism — a doctrine based on the leadership of trade unions. In the second half of the 19th century, it became widespread both in the advanced, industrially developed states of Europe and in a number of countries in South and North America.
Proponents of syndicalism argued that economic growth could only be achieved if workers, united in syndicates and confederations, took complete control of industry. In this case, the governing body should be a certain structure, which, in addition to workers, will include qualified specialists in each specific field.
An economic system unacceptable under socialism
It is easy to see that the workers' control committees created in post-revolutionary Russia largely corresponded to the principles that the syndicalists professed. It was for this reason that they could not have a future under socialism, where the dominant party exercised sole control in all areas of social and economic life.
Being the creators of the working committees, the Bolsheviks very soon felt the danger emanating from them, since they themselves had put into their hands a very dangerous weapon - the right to make independent decisions without looking back at the central government apparatus. In the future, this could lead to the most unpredictable consequences, up to the loss by party bodies of control over industry. Therefore, little by little, the functions of the workers' control committees narrowed, and they themselves were supplanted by the trade unions, which were obedient puppets in the hands of a totalitarian government.
"Swan song" of working committees
An attempt to revive the committees was made during the years of perestroika, since one of the concepts promoted by its ideologists was precisely the syndicalization of industry. To this end, in May 1989, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the "Regulation on Worker Control", which significantly expanded the powers of the trade unions and gave them the opportunity not only to monitor production, but to some extent direct it. However, the partyocracy, still strong at that time, in every way sabotaged its execution.
Only in Kuzbass did the working committee formed at the initiative of the director of the Raspadskaya mine F. E. Evtushenko manage to declare itself in full voice. Its members were able to take an inventory of local coal mining enterprises and, taking them out of the control of the USSR Ministry of Coal Industry, transfer them to the jurisdiction of the Russian government. Thus, Russia carried out the privatization of part of the all-Union property. However, this was all over. After the August putsch of 1991, large-scale privatization began in all areas of the national economy, and the labor control groups created at that time lost their relevance.