The working Opposition is constituted within the Russian Parti Bolshevik in 1919. She will appear especially during the winter 1920-21, at the time of the debate devoted to the problem of the trade unions. With the conference of Moscow, in November 1920, about half of deputy (124 out of 278) decide for the theses of the Opposition. The Opposition profits in addition from an important support of the metallurgists of Pétrograd.

Gathered around Alexandra Kollontaï and of Alexandre Chliapnikov, the Opposition joins together part of the Communists of Left of 1918. Its program is centered around the working control of the production exerted by the trade unions in which the committees of factory were integrated at this time. She is opposed to the use of middle-class specialists and managers in industry, requests the equalization of the rations and the end of the concessions from the Russian and foreign capitalists. The Opposition had in addition contacts with the working Communist party of Germany, and published out of Russia of the calls denouncing the idea of a “single face” and the coexistence with the capitalist States.

The discussion on the trade unions reaches its culminating point in X° Congrès in full insurrection of Kronstadt. Three principal positions are in presence during the Congress:

- Trotsky, supported by Boukharine (former Communist of Left) defends the total subordination of the trade unions at the State, only invested authority to name and revoke the persons in charge;

- the platform of the ten (Lénine, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, etc) proposes a more flexible position, the trade unions having a certain latitude to apply the official decisions;

- the positions of the Working Opposition, contained in the booklet of the same name written by Alexandra Kollontaï oppose the design of trade unions to it “carrying out the creative activity of dictatorship of the proletariat in the economic domain”. However, for the Opposition the party Bolshevik remains “the supreme center of the policy of class, the body of the communist thought, the controller of the real policy of the Soviets”. At most shows she the Party to block the working initiative by “the bureaucratic machine, impregnated of the spirit of routine which governs the middle-class capitalist system of production and control”.

The limit of its opposition to the policy of the direction Bolshevik appears especially vis-a-vis the rising of Kronstadt. This one did not include/understand in its center any member of the Opposition, although certain participants had certainly belonged to the Opposition of the fleet (military opposition interns with the party). The basic difference between the cronstadiens and the Opposition was that the latter did not call into question the monopoly Bolshevik of the capacity. This explains why the spokespersons of the Opposition multiplied the gestures dissociating them from the mutineers.

External bonds

• Alexandra Kollontaï: '' Working Opposition ''