Where Is Our Labor Movement Going?: Reflections on Its Sources and Prospects

Abstract

In one of the editions of the television program Vzglud [Glance], the following scenario flashed on the screen. A correspondent standing at the entrance to the Institute of the International Workers' Movement, USSR Academy of Sciences, asks ironicaIly: So the is international. But with us, in its own country, aren't we it? Or doesn't it merit our interest? The correspondent naturally knew the answers to these questions (indeed, who does not know them now!). Of course there is a movement, and it must be studied. But another important point also needs to be noted. For several decades, the term labor movement was not used in reference to our society and, in fact, had no currency in political science. Why? After all, the official ideology postulated the leading role of the working class, so should not the idea of a socially oriented of this same advanced class have deserved trust in that context? Evidently it did not. The Stakhanovite movement, to be sure, but a movement…. ...