Editing Workers' Opposition (section)

====Start of the debate====
The "trade-union debate" marked the rise of the "workers' opposition." Relying on the provisions contained in the party program adopted at the [[8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] in 1919 - primarily on the part that “trade unions should come to the total concentration of control over the entire national economy" - Shlyapnikov criticized the central committee with his like-minded comrades for “militaristic methods” of working with trade unions, specifically because during the [[Russian Civil War]], unions were massively deprived of independence and absorbed by the government of the [[RSFSR]].<ref name="Sandu"/>

According to [[Aleksei Semyonovich Kiselyov]], serious disagreements with the party leadership among the trade union leaders emerged at the beginning of 1920: he saw them as the main reason for the transition to a policy of [[War communism|militarization of labor]]. At that time, the majority of trade unions believed that the prospect of the end of active hostilities required, if not a change in policy guidelines, then at least a shift in emphasis in the organization of labor - a transition to economic incentives. In particular, they advocated the improvement of the food situation of the proletariat and the development of "amateur activity" of workers within the framework of trade union organizations. Moreover, the party leadership proceeded from the assumption that in the prevailing conditions at the time of the end of the long war, reliance on conventional methods of industrial management would not be able to prevent the final collapse of the Soviet economy: they believed that emergency measures, including military ones, were necessary.<ref name="Sandu"/>