Editing Workers' Opposition (section)

==Ideology==
The Workers' Opposition advocated the role of [[trade unions in the Soviet Union|unionized workers]] in [[workers' control|directing the economy]] at a time when [[government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]] organs were running industry by [[wiktionary:diktat|diktat]] and trying to exclude trade unions from a [[participatory management|participatory]] role.  Specifically, the Workers' Opposition demanded that unionized workers (blue and white collar) should elect representatives to a vertical [[wiktionary:hierarchy|hierarchy]] of councils that would oversee the economy.  At all levels, elected leaders would be responsible to those who had elected them and could be removed from below.  The Workers' Opposition demanded that Russian Communist Party secretaries at all levels cease petty interference in the operations of trade unions and that trade unions should be reinforced with staff and supplies to allow them to carry out their work effectively.  Leaders of the Workers' Opposition were not opposed to the employment of "[[wiktionary:bourgeois|bourgeois]] specialists" in the economy, but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers, unchecked from below. The "Workers' Opposition" based their ideas on the experience of the first months of Soviet power - a short period when the organization of production was really carried out on the basis of the self-government of the proletarians.<ref name="Sandu"/>