Ten Days That Shook the World · Chapter
Resolution of the Factory-Shop Committees explained
This chapter presents a detailed resolution on Workers' Control, outlining the necessity and structure of factory-shop committees as organs of proletarian self-government in industrial production.
What happens
This chapter presents a detailed resolution on Workers' Control, outlining the necessity and structure of factory-shop committees as organs of proletarian self-government in industrial production. It argues that workers' control is essential for the proper functioning of industry, the demobilization of the war economy, and the integration of all economic sectors under a unified plan, with trade unions and factory committees serving as the primary instruments for managing production, distribution, and labor relations.
Themes in this chapter
Workers' Control and Economic Transformation
The entire resolution is a blueprint for implementing workers' control over production, distribution, and employment, emphasizing the role of factory-shop committees and trade unions in managing industry according to a unified plan.
Class Conflict and Polarization
The resolution frames workers' control as a necessary response to the hostile attitude of the capitalist class toward the revolution, highlighting the class struggle over the means of production.
Key passages
“The working-class has much more interest in the proper and uninterrupted operation of factories … than the capitalist class.”
Workers are more invested than capitalists in keeping factories running smoothly.
This statement justifies workers' control by asserting the proletariat's greater stake in industrial stability.
“Only Workers’ Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the workers’ conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a firm self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour’s possible productivity.”
Only through workers' control can a conscious, disciplined, and productive workforce be developed.
This links workers' control to the cultivation of socialist consciousness and labor productivity.
“The economic life of the country—agriculture, industry, commerce and transport—must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so as to satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide masses of the people.”
All sectors of the economy must be coordinated under a single plan to meet the needs of the population.
This outlines the vision for a centrally planned economy as part of the socialist transformation.