LENIN’S LATEST COUP

Southland Times, Issue 18816, 8 May 1920, Page 8

LENIN’S LATEST COUP

ABOLISHES WORKERS’ COUNCILS.

News has been received in Milan which confirms the report that the Russian Bolshevik Government had by a decree abolished the Workmens’ Councils in ail Russian factories and industries, as having proved after two years’ experience that they only led to the ruin and demoralisation of the industries. The Socialist leaders and the Socialist Press in Italy were completely disconcerted by the news, a* not only were Workmen’s Councils one of the fundamental forms of Bolshevism, but it was for the institution of these very councils that the Italian Socialists were agitating, , and which they tried to put in practice in the San soldo Works, amid turbulent scenes. But there is no going against the fact- The following is the decree of the Soviet Government officially published in the Petrograd Press;— The Workmen’s Councils and Committees of Factory Delegatee created to maintain order in the centres of production have on the contrary, produced grave disorders. They have caused the demoralisation of the workmen and the complete demoralisation of the industry. In view. of these circumstances the Soviet Government find them selves compelled to abolish the Workmen’s Councils and the Factory Delegates in all Rossi aThis means that the factories 'will again be managed by boards of directors and proprietors, and that the workmen are deprived of any voice in the conduct of the factories. It also shows the courage of the Bolshevik Government, who thus openly admit the failure of one of the principal points of their programme, and it is only Governments like that of Lenin and Trotsky who could enforce such a decree. Of course, the Soviet Government cover their retreat by introducing a now measure—namely, that of militarising all work. Every man and woman is to be under compulsion to work, and in this way labour discipline, which had gone down to zero, will, it is hoped, be re-established. Trotsky is said recently to have made a declaration to the following effect:—"That the freedom of labour is only a capitalistic institution, but cannot be admitted in a Communist State.” Trotsky added that obligatory labour must be at once introduced and imposed upon all men and women, sod a beginning made with the soldiers in the Red Army. Each soldier who has learnt a trade or is skilled in any kind of work, is drafted for that special work, and compelled by military force to go wherever he is ordered, though it may be thousands of miles from his home. This drastic decree has been in application sipce January 28 in the districts of Ishim, Karaturakaja, Cbushiaskaia, Jalutorovsk, Turin*k, Shadrinak, and Ki sailed. Groups of 100 carpenters, (or instance, were sent to Kissilcff to construct wooden bridges. Similar groups were sent to Cehabinak, on the Siberian border, to reconstruct ruined flour-mills, and Lenin issued a decree whereby the railway between Moecow and Ekaterinburg was to be immediately repaired by gangs of navvies, platelayers, masons, carpenters, and ironworkers, and in a similar way the railway line from Ekaterinburg to Kemeoa is to be repaired by compulsorily militarised labour. The salaries are fixed by military decree, but the earning of salaries does not take away the fact that the workmen are compelled to work as in the days of slavery.