case study the ford pinto

What Made the Pinto Such a Controversial Car

The Pinto became known as the subcompact car that Ford sold while ignoring major safety defects. But was that just a false narrative?

Narrative is powerful. Take the case of the Ford Pinto, the much-maligned subcompact produced by the American manufacturer to compete with the growing foreign car imports in the late 1960s and into the 1970s.

The roots of the Pinto— described by one reporter as “the most controversial car ever built” —go back to 1966, when Lee Iaccoca, then Ford president, ordered the development of a subcompact. This was to be different from the typical bulky American model of the day. Iaccoca wanted this new car to be less than 2,000 pounds and to be sold for less than $2,000. He envisioned it as an American alternative to the popular Japanese and German imports.

The car, introduced in the model year 1971, never sold very well, was plagued by defects, and most tragically, was involved in a series of rear-end collisions which cost the company millions in liability. One California case, based upon an August 1977 accident, assigned $125 million in damages after the death of a teenager. Another highly-publicized criminal case took place in Indiana, where Ford was found not guilty but later paid damages in a civil case.

A 1977 article in Mother Jones  titled “Pinto Madness” blamed the fatalities on a rear end fuel tank design which author Mark Dowie claimed was deliberately developed by Ford to save money at the expense of human lives. Writers Matthew Lee and David Ermann note that the Pinto narrative became well-established. In the popular imagination, the car had unique problems and Ford had decided to sacrifice safety at the altar of corporate profits.

According to Lee and Ermann, however, that story simply isn’t true.

Crash tests cited by the prosecution in famous cases against Ford both in Indiana and California were not definitive. The concept of crash tests were new at the time, producing data wide open to interpretation. The Pinto, the authors say, compared relatively well with other subcompacts.

Scholar John R. Danley argues that contrary to popular belief, the Pinto was in the middle of fatality rates for cars of its type . On the top of the list at the time was the Volkswagen Beetle. There was also no significant difference in the rate of fatalities caused by rear end collisions, the structural defect for which Ford paid a heavy price.

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One largely unexplored issue was the safety record of subcompacts in general. Drivers and passengers in such cars in the late 1970s, including the Pinto, but also including foreign imports, were twice as likely to die in crashes as those driving larger cars.

Still, prosecutors and journalists painted Ford as a monolith, with centralized decision-making that created clear decisions, making it easy to point the finger at top brass. In reality, according to Lee and Ermann (as well as other organizational researchers), Ford was much like other companies, with competing groups of engineers and marketers and finance people coming together, sometimes not very well, to create products like the Pinto. The Pinto narrative, they say, was largely the result of a post- Watergate journalistic fever, in which conspiracy and moral calculations in organizational wrongdoing were regularly being highlighted by reporters.

“There was no decision to market an unsafe product,” write Lee and Ermann. The reality was more complicated. But the narrative has taken hold, and there are few who now look upon Ford’s entry into the small car market with nostalgia. The Pinto, marketed as the carefree car, proved too much of a headache and was discontinued ten years after its introduction.

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The Ford Pinto Case

A study in applied ethics, business, and technology.

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Table of contents

Ethical Analysis of Case Studies

PART I: THE PINTO CONTROVERSY

Introduction: The Pinto Controversy Douglas Birsch

1. Pinto Madness Mark Dowie

2. Ford Rebuts Pinto Criticism and Says Article is Distorted The National Underwriter

3. The Pinto Documents Lee Patrick Strobel

4. The Pinto Fuel System West's California Reporter

5. Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, Part 571; S 301

6. Investigation Report, Phase I: Alleged Fuel Tank and Filler Neck Damage in Rear-End Collision of Subcompact Passenger Cars

7. Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics: A Script Analysis of Missed Opportunities Dennis A. Gioia

PART II: COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Introduction: Cost-Benefits Analysis

8. Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique Steven Kelman

9. Defending Cost-Benfit Analysis: Replies to Steven Kelman James V. Delong; Robert M. Solow; Gerard Butters, John Calfee, and Pauline Ippolito; Robert A. Nisbet

10. Product Safety, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and the Ford Pinto Case Douglas Birsch

11. Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires E. S. Grush and C. S. Saunby

PART III: WHISTLE BLOWING

Introduction: Whistle Blowing

12. Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in Large Organizations: The Pinto Case Richard T. De George

13. Commentary on "Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in Large Organizations: The Pinto Case" Hart T. Mankin

14. Whistle Blowing, Ethical Obligation, and the Ford Pinto Case Douglas Birsch

PART IV: PRODUCT LIABILITY

Introduction: Product Liability

15. Marketing and Product Liability: A Review and Update Fred W. Morgan

16. Strict Products Liability and Compensatory Justice George G. Brenkert

17. Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company West's California Reporter

PART V: THE REGULATION OF BUSINESS

Introduction: The Regulation of Business

18. Profits vs. Safety Francis T. Cullen, William J. Maakestad, and Gray Cavender

19. Five Moral Imperatives of Government Regulation Peter Barton Hutt

20. Regulation: A Substitute for Morality Alasdair MacIntyre

21. The Ethics and Politics of Automobile Regulation John H. Fielder

Appendix: Abbreviated Ford Pinto Chronology

Bibliography

Description

This book brings together the basic documents needed for reaching an informed judgment on the central ethical question in the Pinto case: did Ford Motor Company act ethically in designing the Pinto fuel system and in deciding not to upgrade the integrity of that system until 1978? The five parts of this book cover the case, cost-benefit analysis, whistle blowing, product liability, and government regulations.

Douglas Birsch , Associate Professor of Philosophy is an instructor at Villanova University. He is co-author of The DC-10 Case: A Study in Applied Ethics, Technology, and Society , also published by SUNY Press. John H. Fielder , Professor of Philosophy, is an instructor at Villanova University. He is co-author of The DC-10 Case: A Study in Applied Ethics, Technology, and Society , also published by SUNY Press.

"The Ford Pinto case is mentioned in most Business Ethics texts as an example of Cost-Benefit analysis, yet in those formats any appreciation of the complexity surrounding the issues of such decisions is overly simplified. As a thorough study, this book provides material that enriches the entire idea of using a particular case as an avenue of learning about Ethics, Business, Society, Technology, and Government Regulation. Rather than as a mere reference tool for educators and other professionals, this book could be successful in the classroom in a way that no other anthology or collection of short case studies could be. " — Greg Pasquarello, Neumann College

Ford Pinto Case Study

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This text has discussed a real estate-focused case study throughout in disparate pieces. The aim of this chapter is to provide a cradle-to-grave case study which illustrate the entire multimethodology developed in the text. The case study focuses on the Ford Pinto and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

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Hester, P.T., Adams, K.M. (2017). Ford Pinto Case Study. In: Systemic Decision Making. Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54672-8_17

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Douglas Birsch, Associate Professor of Philosophy is an instructor at Villanova University. He is co-author of The DC-10 Case: A Study in Applied Ethics, Technology, and Society, also published by SUNY Press.

John H. Fielder, Professor of Philosophy, is an instructor at Villanova University. He is co-author of The DC-10 Case: A Study in Applied Ethics, Technology, and Society, also published by SUNY Press.

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ State University of New York Press (October 28, 1994)
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Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto Case Study

In contemporary business settings, ethics is often perceived primarily along the lines of workplace ethics, negotiations, ethics of management, and cultural diversity. However, this subject has many important areas, and one of them is focused on the relationship between the business and society. These relationships often result in clashes because they normally involve a large variety of very different issues.

Naturally, in a non-perfect world, where unanimity is rarely the case, fulfilling the need of one side always leads to the dissatisfaction of another side. That way, confrontations are never-ending and so are the ethical challenges faced by the contemporary businesses. This paper will focus on the exploration of a well-known business ethics case study known as the Ford Pinto case—a scandalous event that resulted in a multitude of fatalities caused by a major product liability. Namely, the business and legal issues that resulted from the case will be discussed.

To be more precise, the Ford Pinto case will be evaluated from the legal point of view to establish which laws were violated in the process of corporate decision-making that led to the production of the Pinto. Further, the decisions of the Ford staff will be explored from the perspective of Milton Friedman’s philosophy. In addition, the company’s moral responsibilities to the stakeholders (the customers in particular) will be discussed. Finally, an ethical framework that impacted Ford’s executives will be applied to the case.

Ford Pinto Case Overview

Competing against the Japanese car manufacturers, which used to be considered as superior to the American ones in terms of product quality, the leaders of Ford decided to create a new vehicle known as the Ford Pinto. The vehicle was also regarded as “Lee’s car,” which is a reference to the president of Ford at the time, Lee Iacocca (Shaw & Barry, 2014).

The new car was designed to be rather light (no heavier than 2,000 pounds), and its price was assigned as no higher than $2,000 (Shaw & Barry, 2014). Apart from these standards, the manufacturers had to fit into one more frame—that of time. To be more precise, the time they were given to design and produce the Pinto was abnormally short—two and a half years instead of the usual three; that schedule meant that the stages of design adjusting and production line tooling were to overlap (Shaw & Barry, 2014).

Many of the car prototypes were tested for the purpose of meeting the state standards of NHTSA that required the cars to endure rear-end collisions of 20 mph. All of the prototypes (including the Ford Pinto) failed to withstand this level of impact; the results were the loss of fuel and broken gas tanks (Shaw & Barry, 2014).

Facing this problem, Ford’s leaders had to decide whether to release the existing vehicles with a dangerous flaw and put the consumers at risk or to spend more time redesigning the cars. After cost-benefit reasoning, the choice was made to stick with the flawed Pinto. As a result, the vehicles caused a number of deaths related to rear-end collisions and the ensuing fires; to be more precise, the critics estimated the number of victims of the flawed car design to be around 500 (Shaw & Barry, 2014). About fifty lawsuits were filed against Ford for the accidents involving Pinto cars and collisions, including a charge with the homicide of three teenagers, where Ford was found not guilty (Shaw & Barry, 2014).

The company never agreed with the statement that Pinto cars were unsafe in comparison with the other models; however, the critics maintained that Ford officials’ decision to release the cars was an error due to their easy to rupture gas tanks with an unsafe location in a very soft rear end (Shaw & Barry, 2014). Practically, the cause of the disagreement was the criticism of Ford leaders as responsible for unethical decision-making that put the consumers in danger for the sake of financial benefits.

Three Laws Violated by Ford

The case of the Ford Pinto violated many types of laws; three of them are criminal law, consumer protection law, and tort law. Further, each of these laws is explored in detail in reference to the case of the Ford Pinto.

Criminal Law

As specified by Brickley and Gottesman (2016), a breach of the criminal law is punishable when it involves a combination of two elements: mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty action). The guilty mind can be defined as having criminal ideas, and guilty actions are divided into four categories: the acts committed intentionally, negligibly, knowingly, and recklessly (Brickley & Gottesman, 2016).

In the case of the Ford Pinto, the guilty act definitely involved the knowledge of the perpetuators of the danger their decisions represented. Namely, the officials were aware of the flawed design of the cars as well as their inability to match the safety standard established by NHTSA. Besides this, the manufacturers even conducted a cost-benefit analysis and evaluated the potential danger the cars presented to the consumers. This knowledge did not stop them from selling the vehicles. One may conclude that the guilty act was committed knowingly with the presence of guilty mind interested in financial benefits.

Consumer Protection Law

Sometimes the practices of some businesses may result in negative consequences for the consumers; this phenomenon is recognized as an abusive business practice and is addressed by consumer protection law ( Consumer Rights – Consumer Protection Law , 2016). To be more precise, consumer protection laws are designed specifically to hold the manufacturers and sellers responsible for actions that victimize the consumers via the unethical pursuit of profit.

The consumers may become easy targets for such unlawful practices due to their lack of information or the power to bargain ( Consumer Rights – Consumer Protection Law , 2016). In the case of Ford Pinto, the manufacturers failed to inform the consumers about the weaknesses of the vehicle and its potential implications for the people’s safety. As a result, many individuals were harmed and killed.

Tort law is specifically designed to provide protection to the parties that become injured as a result of a harmful act of another party; that way, the loss of the harmed party becomes the liability of the responsible party ( Tort , n. d.). In other words, the damages suffered by the injured party can be paid back by the initiators of harm in monetary form. In the case of the Ford Pinto, the losses of the consumers affected by the fires and explosions of the flawed vehicles were covered by Ford; such losses involve the loss of income due to sick leave or disability and the cost of medical treatment.

Friedman’s Philosophy and Ford’s Staff

The character of the Ford Pinto case in relation to the free market issues was discussed by Milton Friedman in one of his lectures given in the 1970s. Friedman’s take on the case was rather controversial as he pointed out that the problem was not of moral but of economic character ( Milton Friedman on the price of human life , 2011). This is the principle that became the basis of Ford’s analysis of the issue when they realized that the Pinto vehicles had a flaw.

Practically, the Ford’s leaders and analysts rejected the principles of morality and the intuitive feeling of wrong and right and instead treated the financial side of the problem as isolated from all the other components, assuming that is was the rational approach. Friedman’s approach was misused by Ford during their cost-benefit analysis. Friedman disagrees with the calculations they made; however, the basics of the solution and decision-making process practiced by Ford in reference to the Pinto align with Friedman’s philosophy.

For the executives of the company, Friedman’s philosophy may have served as a strong justification of their flawed models and the decision to go through with their release. Dry and emotionless calculation of monetary costs and benefits of selling cars and the loss of human lives taken objectively to find the right solution led to multiple lawsuits and risks for the organization.

Ford’s Moral Responsibilities

Continuing to connect the Friedman’s philosophy with Ford’s decision concerning the release of the Pinto cars, it is crucial to mention that the philosophy emphasizes one important aspect: the need to follow the rules of the game ( Returning to the Pinto Case , 2016). In other words, sticking to the rules of the games referred to Ford’s obligation to avoid the breach of criminal laws and put their customers at risk by means of selling flawed cars.

At the same time, at the moment when the cars were sold, the consumers were not in danger. Basically, the law of time was not breached by Ford as the effects of their decisions were not the reality at the time, and neither were the laws violated in the collisions ( Returning to the Pinto Case , 2016). Also, it is possible to say that the consumers should have learned about the advantages and disadvantages of the cars before purchasing them, making the buyers partially responsible; however, this approach does not remove the fault from the manufacturers ( Returning to the Pinto Case , 2016).

Ethical Framework That Applies to the Situation

The utilitarianism is the framework that Ford’s analysts relied on while conducting a cost-benefit analysis of the release of the Pinto cars (Poel & Royakkers, 2011). Practically, the calculated social costs of the potential car accidents were not outweighed by the costs of waiting for the release and making improvements. The utilitarian perspective was based on the evaluation of the costs from the point of view of the consumers and not Ford (Poel & Royakkers, 2011).

At the same time, the costs calculated by Ford can be recognized as arbitrary (for instance, how can one calculate the value of pain?). Also, by making that calculation, the researchers dismissed the fact that the release of the cars would lead to the deaths of people, thus committing an ultimate act of immorality. Ford’s utilitarian-act argument does not work, because it treats utilitarianism as merely a practical approach, rejecting its ethical component that does not allow sacrificing lives and the wellbeing of people for financial rewards.

To sum up, the Ford Pinto case is one of the clearest examples of consumer rights abuse by a manufacturer. The most disturbing aspect of the case is that numbers and calculations were used as the basis for a decision that was supposed to rely on legal and ethical rules. In addition, some of the variables and numbers presented in Ford’s report are arbitrary. Because of this, the release of the defective cars resulted in the deaths of many people and multiple lawsuits for the company.

Brickley, S. D. & Gottesman, B. M. (2016). Business Law Basics .

Consumer Rights – Consumer Protection Law . (2016).

Milton Friedman on the price of human life. (2011).

Poel, I. & Royakkers, L. (2011). Ethics, Technology, and Engineering: An Introduction . New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons

Returning to the Pinto Case. (2016).

Shaw W. H. & Barry, D. (2014). Moral Issues in Business (8th ed.). New York, NY: Cengage Learning. Tort . (n. d.).

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, June 24). Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto. https://ivypanda.com/essays/business-ethics-ford-pintos-case/

"Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto." IvyPanda , 24 June 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/business-ethics-ford-pintos-case/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto'. 24 June.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto." June 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/business-ethics-ford-pintos-case/.

1. IvyPanda . "Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto." June 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/business-ethics-ford-pintos-case/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Business & Legal Issues: Ford Pinto." June 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/business-ethics-ford-pintos-case/.

• Ford Pinto's Fuel System Redesign and Ethics
• Ford Pinto Litigation and Business Ethics
• Ford Pinto: Measuring Safety
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• Ford Pinto Case Study: A Letter to Mr. Copp
• Business Ethics and Taking Sides: Ford Motor Company
• The Ford Pinto Case and Ethical Dilemma
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• Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Ford Pinto
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• Employee Theft in “Who Stole the Money, and When?”
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Case study: The Ford Pinto

Part 1 Question A The main characters in this case study are the owners of Ford led by the president, Lee Iacocca. The president is more than determined to regain the market share that Ford enjoyed before the entry of other competitors and therefore he thinks of ways of recapturing their market share. Their market position in the in the car manufacturing industry was threatened by the competition they encountered from domestic and foreign subcompacts, especially Volkswagen . In order to regain the market share, Lee Iacocca thinks of the production of a new subcompact, referred as the Pinto within two years.

This rush production of this car leads to an ethical conflict which the owners face in court. During the crash testing period of the Pinto, the car was prone to instant burning due to the induced fuel leakages that caused fire. The car was designed in a way that the fuel system of the car was at the rear part. The owners ignored these ethical consequences and went on with the production of the car which eventually led to the death and loss of many lives as a result of fires from fuel-induced accidents. The owners ignored the fact that the benefits were almost thrice less than the associated costs. All they wanted was to recapture their market share hence they ignored the ethical consequences (Buchanan, 1995).

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Question B The aspirations of people vary from person to person based on the ambition in life regardless of the integrity of the person. From the case study, we learn that the producers of the Pinto had divergent view during the initial production of the car. The president of Ford was not guided by his integrity hence he authorized the production of the car despite the ethical challenges it posed to the would-be users. The knowledge of ethical education would have been crucial to the producers of the car because it could have made them use ethical procedures and measures during the production stage. This case study therefore shows that the integrity of a person may not play a crucial part in the quest to realize his aspirations if he lacks the knowledge of ethical education.

This is exemplified by the company’s refusal to use in a new design in the production of the car despite their accessibility in favor of the unethical design. The possibility of death as a result of this model would have been minimized if ethical practice would have been put into action. It is obvious from the case study that the motive of the car manufacturer was purely based on monetary gains. The manufacturer focused on the profit side of the business rather than the safety and ethical principles of the business. Question C The characters in the case study should have adopted a moral stand before and during the production of the Ford.

This would therefore imply that they would have put the safety and the well being of a human being before their own interests. The deaths that resulted from the production of this car would have been eliminated in the first place. The Kantian theory says that men should place a moral norm before them and obey it no matter the pressure from within and without the person. This theory is applicable to the producers of the Ford car because if they would have had prior knowledge of this theory, they would have adopted a better design to produce the car (Machan, 1999). The design they would have adopted should place the safety of human beings above the economic gains they desired. In addition, apart from the market forces of demand and supply, any automaker must focus on safety of the user rather than prestige or any other factor for that matter.

Design aspects must be user friendly at all times and guarantee safety. Part 2 The Market Economy A market economy is a type of economy where decisions concerning investment, production of goods and distribution of goods are all based on supply and demand, as well as market prices of goods and services are all determined in a free system of setting up prices. A market economy has a major characteristic where decision regarding investment and allocation/citing of producer goods is just accomplished through regular market meetings. This contrasts quite much with a planned economy, where investment and production decisions of goods and services are all enclosed/embodied in a plan of production. Market economies do not subsist in one pure form since the governments and societies keep changing them in orde to fit in different circumstances in changeable degrees.

Most current market economies are state directed and consist of a degree of economic planning from the government of the day and the government directs all the activities. Markets can be perfect market, free market and/or controlled markets. Perfect Market A perfect market can be defined basing on varied conditions, these conditions are in common known as perfect competition. Perfect competition include: perfect market information, limited participation with intention to set up prices, free from government intervention, an open entry and exit into the market zone, individuals in trade have got equal chances to access important factors of production. There is also profit maximization and limited or no external forces to influence trade and other market activities. In the UAE, this will be quite difficult as there are many potential entrepreneurs who might want to enter into this market system with different rules and regulations concerning prices and introduction of new market ventures.

The general equilibrium theory shows that when we have a perfect competition at the market, the shape of supply and demand curves, there is greater chances of proving that market activities will eventually reach equilibrium, in which supply of goods or items and services at the market are equal to the market demand of these required goods and services at the current price. This equilibrium will ensure that nobody is made better off than the other in exchange process (Buchanan, 1995). The most similar market to the perfect market is the share and foreign exchange markets. Perfect markets have normal profits that are enough to entice participants to stay in the market and thus satisfy customers’ demands. The foreign currency in the UAE will encounter some obstacles due to the fluctuation of their currency.

For a free market to operate well, it also should favor the foreign investors, the currency of that country of investment should be strong, rigid and at a commendable exchange rate. This does not favor the UAE due to their ever-changing currency exchange rates. Free Market A free market is a type of market, which is free from economic interventions and strict regulation by the governments, only for protection of property rights. In other words, a free market has no regulation; moreover, it also has no item/product subsidization and is free from the government monopolies. A free market is a market structure in which the distribution and costs of goods/items and services, along the hierarchy between capital and consumer goods are coordinated and supplied basing on the available market demand without hindrance from external forces of regulation or control from the government in charge of that market center and/or monopolies from the government is not there. A free market sharply contrasts with controlled market or regulated market, in which there are strict government interventions and government policies, in the setting of prices and the production of goods as well as in their distribution.

A free market economy is an economy that is entirely composed of free market. Free markets are mostly associated with capitalism.In the perfect free market, products and property rights are not restricted by the government and are voluntarily exchanged at the prices agreed up on by the parties in an exchange activity in a mutual agreement that is the seller and the buyer. Buyers and sellers do not force one another into agreement i.e. they do not follow the practice of forcing people to accept or like their products.

Free Market and Economic Intervention In a market economy, the government takes economic interventions, which moves beyond the basic regulation of fraud at the market places and it, thus, enforces contracts; this is all in an effort to affect its own economy, because many of the government’s taxes are raised from trade activities. Economic Intervention Economic intervention is an economic practice, which favors interventions in free market where the public interest is at large on behalf of the government. An economic intervention is any move taken by the government or any other legal international institution in the market economy or mixed market economy in efforts to impact economy and curb instances of fraud, enforcing contracts and providing public goods and services. Economic intervention is aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives ssuch as: promoting economic growth- this is through curbing any prevalence of black markets. Black markets relate to the situation in market activities where the producers of goods decide to keep their commodities in a safe haven and after the other products have been exhausted on the market, they release these products at a very high price. Black markets exist to exploit consumers who will have a lot of demand for scarce products.

Black markets give a lot of pain to the product consumers and the government that is why the government will always regulate the markets against these acts. Contractarian Ethical Theory The contractarian ethical theory is both a moral theory that explains the origin or the legitimate content of moral norms and a political theory that defines the boundaries of political authority. The political theory of authority asserts that the government, which is legitimate, must derive from the ideas of contract or mutual agreement. The moral theory of contractarianism is about moral norms and that they must derive from the idea of contract or mutual agreement between the interested parties. Free market is absolutely connected with contractarian theory, because in a free market, the parties mutually agree on the price to use in buying and selling their products and is based on a contract where either should deviate from the agreement.

In contractarian ethical theory, the parties in forming an agreement do so without the checks and balances from the government, indeed in the free market economy, traders perform their activities and duties freely so long as they do so basing on the constitution and labor union requirements that temporarily hold accountable some cases arising from trade activities. As we all have innate values of accepting morality, thus as in a free market economy where despite individuals looking for profits and financial gain from their businesses, they are also initiated by their inner to maintain a certain level of morality. The Enforcers of Contracts in Societies Today and the Relation between the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” and the Moral ContractIn today’s societies, the enforcer of the contract should be the parties involving in the agreement and if it fails to be achieved, then the legal procedure is followed bending the agreement, in other words, the government should now be involved in the case where the agreement is not fulfilled. The labor unions should also be engaged in trade agreements, this is applicable in the place whereby the country has a clearly spelt out constitution that takes into consideration the affairs of its citizens involved in the business industry. The people in trade should have to make and enforce a lasting impression of mutual understanding between them in their trade activities, as this is the easier way of enforcing the contract between or among the business and trade partners. There should also be morals by agreement to be employed in grounding morality rules in rationality in order to defeat the moral skeptics (Machan, 1999).

The society must also justify rational compliance with the norms that have been accepted. These norms must be derived on the initial situation of the conduct of the contracting situation in the business world. The prisoner’s dilemma relates to the moral contract, where an individual in trade refuses to oblige to his or her promises, then the legal procedure might be followed, which puts that individual at risk of being arrested and taken to jail. The characterization of people in their natural environment leads to a dilemma that might as well destabilize their ego integrity and trust within and towards other people. This moral dilemma will lead an individual into socially sub-optimal situations that are not desirable and might motivate them to make concessions to one another for some agreement. Controlled (Regulated) Markets The government mostly controls controlled markets, the government issues regulations about the prices and supplies.

The body that is appointed by the government regulates the provision of goods and services. This regulation covers the terms of supplying of goods to the market and services. This body also sets the price that should be allowed to be charged at the market and those whom they are distributed. In the controlled market, there is no mutual agreement between the buyer and the seller to set their own prices, but is done by one central body appointed by the government. Regulated markets commonly control natural monopolies such as communication aspects in the form phones by setting tarrifs.

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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.

Collected Works Volume 32 Collected Works Table of Contents Lenin Works Archive

The spiraling 246m high Evolution Tower is located on plots 2-3 of Moscow-City high-rise business district on Presnenskaya Embankment of Moscow river. New multi-function center occupies the territory of 2.5ha in area, 2ha of which is a landscaped terraced civic plaza, the integral part of the new city piazza, the central open public space of Moscow-City business downtown.

ivic plaza includes 10m high ceremonial stairs (leading from embankment and pedestrian Bagration Bridge to the higher terraced levels) as well as landscaped areas with green lawns, trees, water features, travellators and feature lightboxes.

Evolution Tower

Location: Moscow, Russia

Typology: High-Rise, Office, Mixed-Use

Years: Construction 2011-2014

Status: Built

Height: 246m

Design team: GORPROJECT  (2011-2015), 

RMJM Scotland Ltd 

(original concept 2005-2007)

Under the piazza levels the 2-storey retail mall connects the Evolution Tower with metro station and pedestrian bridge over Moscow river, thus integrating the new development into the large Moscow-City district, the Europe's newest and most ambitious high-rise cluster (7 of 10 highest European skyscrapers ae located here), housing over 4 million square meters of office and retail areas with associated transport and engineering infrastructure.   

The Evolution Gallery mall houses food court and 6,000m2 family entertainment and educational center for various children activities (the first center of that kind in Moscow). 

The 82,000m2 office tower has 52 levels rotated 3 degrees each floor with overall twist reaching 156 degrees clockwise. With world’s largest innovative cold-bent glazing the tower façade provides seamless floating reflection that rotates the panoramas of Moscow skyline vertically, where the reflected clouds moving up enhance the dynamic visual impact of the twisted tower, an unprecedented optical effect in the world architecture.  The Crown with supporting steel structure made of two twisted arches provides the helipad at the very top as well as the open observation roof decks at Levels 51-52 featuring the best panoramas of Moscow riverside with views towards the historical center. 

From the very beginning the developer and architects have set an ambitious task to create a recognizable and symbolic tower, the new icon of contemporary Moscow.  The sculptural DNA-shaped twisting tower symbolizes the evolution spiral with the white façade ribbon wrapping over the roof in a form of 90-degree twisted infinity symbol, which speaks of philosophical concept of evolution and celebrates the development of human civilization. From spiraling onion domes of St. Basil to the iconic Tatlin Tower concept the Russian architecture was obsessed with idea of spiral. The simple and innovative design was based on principles of twisting square-shaped floor plates with vertical structural RC frame supported by a central core and 8 columns with continuous beams and 4 spiraling columns at the corners. 

The proposed structural scheme with cantilevered continuous RC beams and cantilevered floor slabs  picking up the overhangs from the twisted floor plates appeared to be simple, efficient and economical. The complex sculptural tower façade envelope was built using the innovative cold-bent glazing with flat double glazed units cold-formed in 3D within the aluminum frame under its own weight to avoid stepping in geometry. This approach appeared to be both more energy-efficient and more cost-efficient solution in comparison to the stepped curtain wall units previously applied in some twisted unitized facades. 

The multifunctional architectural glass by Guardian significantly reduces the solar gain whilst providing the double glazed unit thermal performance equal to standard triple glazed unit normally used in Moscow to withstand harsh winter conditions. The use of innovative TWIN elevators by ThyssenKrupp saved 2 shafts within the core (10 TWINs instead of 12 double-deckers in the original concept) and contributed to the overall project sustainability with lesser power consumption per passenger. Other sustainable design features include green roofs over the retail mall and integrated coil floor heating under landscaped civic piazza levels using the return water in winter to melt the snow and ice for the safety of pedestrians. The reinforced concrete formwork by PERI, including self-climbing ACS formwork specially designed for the twisting corner columns, allowed to achieve the impressive speed of RC frame construction of 6 days per floor due to perfect site logistics by Renaissance Construction as main contractor. 

All innovative design solutions and optimizations secured the delivery of this fairly unique skyscraper within the project plan and almost within the budget of the standard ‘benchmark’ high-rise building. This turned out to be a major achievement of the design and construction teams. 

The organic twisting silhouette dominates on its background of extruded glass towers greatly contributing into the overall composition of the high-rise Moscow-City cluster. The development delivered a significant open public space on the landscaped roof of the retail mall, thus providing the perfect mix of business uses with public and social activities of the civic plaza and the mall with its food court and core family entertainment function. The synergy of that mix with large underground car-park complemented by the direct link to the metro station and pedestrian bridge as means of main public transportation secured the successful project completion with the recent entire tower acquisition. Bold shape and timeless aesthetics as added values brought by its unique architecture materialized in a commercial success of this project with the tower being fully acquired for corporate headquarters even in the context of oversupply in the Moscow office market. The outstanding quality of architecture and its fine detailing, state of the art building services and communications of Class A office Tower together with the highest level of transport accessibility  (direct access to metro station from the lobby, large car-parking, proximity to boat pier and helipads) make this property very attractive for tenants and visitors. The beautiful riverside panoramas from offices are complemented by green roof and water features of the large 2ha terraced civic piazza as the main recreational outdoor space with direct link from the office tower lobby. 

The highest quality of façade cladding, glazing, vertical transportation and MEP equipment from leading European and international suppliers provided the truly Class-A office environment with the luxury of minimalist spirit in the architecture of the new landmark on the Moscow skyline. Even before its completion the sculptural spiral of Evolution Tower, more often appearing in commercials, posters and magazines, became a new icon for modern Moscow as the symbol of its business ambitions and fast development. The Evolution Tower also became the monument to the courage of its developer (Snegiri Group) and investors, who built the great deal of trust with architects, engineers and contractors by investing their efforts and funds in a challenging adventure of designing and building the unique and innovative skyscraper for the capital of Russia. 

Evolution Reflections

Philipp nikandrov.

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New ITU case study maps the Moscow ‘smart city’ journey

Moscow reports experience with Key Performance Indicators for Smart Sustainable Cities

A new ITU case study offers an evaluation of Moscow’s progress in meeting the objectives of its ‘smart city’ strategies and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The case study ,  Implementing ITU-T International Standards to Shape Smart Sustainable Cities: The Case of Moscow , was undertaken using the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Smart Sustainable Cities developed by the  United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiativ e .

The ITU case study traces Moscow’s smart city journey from its origins in Moscow’s  Information City  strategy launched in 2011 to its successor the  Smart Moscow 2030  strategy. It highlights the role of Moscow’s Government in coordinating the implementation of a wide array of smart city projects in the city and how these projects have substantially improved the quality of life for city residents. The report assesses Moscow’s smart city performance using U4SSC indicators that measure impact on three dimensions: the economy, environment and society & culture.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a recognized key contributor to the Moscow economy. Building on its strengths and maintaining ICTs as a strategic lever, Moscow has adopted vibrant policies for ICT development and proliferation. These aspects are clearly reflected in the good performance by Moscow, as presented in the report, within the sub-dimensions of “ICT” and “Productivity”.

The case study also serves as a valuable reference point to other cities in Russia and Commonwealth of Independent State countries – as well as to cities around the world pursuing greater efficiency and sustainability. ITU standardization experts responsible for the refinement of the Key Performance Indicators will also find the case study to be valuable.

RELATED: Dubai reports results from implementing ITU’s Key Performance Indicators for Smart Sustainable Cities

“Home to more than 12 million people, Moscow is the largest urban area on the European continent,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “Considering the size of Moscow and its population, this case study offers a unique set of lessons learned for other cities around the world developing a ‘smart city’ strategy. I commend Moscow’s leaders for their efforts to share these experiences and this knowledge with the international community, towards creating a ‘smart’ world for everyone, everywhere.”

“Moscow has made a rapid smart city journey from 2011 and we are keen on keeping up with the pace. No matter whether it is Moscow, Singapore or Barcelona – every city has the same task to make their residents’ lives enjoyable, safe and comfortable,” said Strategy and Innovations Advisor to the Chief Information Officer of Moscow, Andrey Belozerov. “We are happy to contribute to this research as it is important to develop universal metrics to access city performances all around the world.”

The findings of the case study will feed into the work of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T)  Study Group 20 , the expert group leading the development of ITU standards for the Internet of Things and smart cities. These standards assist in optimizing the application of ICTs within smart cities, in addition to supporting efficient data processing and management.

RELATED: New ITU case study shares insight into Singapore’s ‘Smart Nation’ strategy

The findings will also be taken up by the U4SSC initiative, which advocates for public policy to ensure that ICTs, and ICT standards in particular, play a definitive role in the transition to Smart Sustainable Cities. U4SSC also promotes the adoption of international standards in reaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the reporting of associated experiences.

The Moscow case study follows prior smart city case studies of Dubai and Singapore. These have made valuable smart cities experiences and knowledge available to other cities around the world. This reporting also solicits feedback that helps cities to refine their smart city strategies.

U4SSC has developed a  ‘Collection methodology for the Key Performance Indicators for Smart Sustainable Cities’  to guide cities in their collection of core data and information necessary to assess  their progress in becoming a Smart Sustainable City. It is supported by 16 United Nations bodies, including ITU, and is open to the participation of all stakeholders interested in driving smart city innovation.

The collaboration encouraged by U4SSC has led more than 50 cities to measure their smart city strategies using the U4SSC’s KPIs for Smart Sustainable Cities, which are based on the ITU international standard,  ITU Y.4903/L.1603 “Key Performance Indicators for Smart Sustainable Cities to assess the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals” .

This ITU News story was originally distributed as an ITU press release. For more ITU press releases, see the  ITU Media Centre . 

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