Workers opposition

The workers opposition was an oppositional tendency within the Russian Bolshevik Party from 1919 (first resistance to war communism ) to 1922 (parliamentary group ban by party congress resolution).

The main point of criticism was the deformation of the workers' state into bureaucratism . According to the workers' opposition, this was expressed through the undemocratic conditions (which led to complaints to the Comintern , especially within the party) and also through the New Economic Policy and pronounced party bans.

The workers' opposition was able to gain influence in the trade unions and the Communist Party of Ukraine.

The main demand of the workers' opposition was to place complete economic control in the hands of the unions .

Important representatives

• Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai
• Alexander Gavrilowitsch Schljapnikow
• Sergei Pavlovich Medvedev
• Gavriil Ilyich Myasnikov

literature

• Alexandra Kollontai: The Workers' Opposition in Russia. With critical comments by R. Korpelanski , Verlag der Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale, Berlin approx. 1922 ( online in the Marxists Internet Archive )
• Gottfried Mergner (Ed.): The Russian Workers Opposition 1982, ISBN 349945291X
• Arnold Schwendtke : Workers' opposition in the Soviet Union , Rowohlt TB-V., Reinbek 1980, ISBN 978-3499144325

Web links

• Alexander G. Schljapnikow, Theses of the Workers Opposition (engl.)
• The Kollontai Internet Archive, The Worker's Opposition (Engl.)
• Vladimir I. Lenin, Original draft of the resolution of the Xth Party Congress of the KPR on the syndicalist and anarchist deviation in our party