Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Childhood disease "leftism" in communism (№ 394105)

The trade unions were the giant progress of the working class in the early development of capitalism as the transition from sparseness and helplessness of the workers to the rudiments of class Association. When became to grow the highest form of class Association of the proletarians revolutionary party of the proletariat (which will not deserve the name until it learns to bind the leaders with the class and with the masses into one, into something inseparable), then the trade unions inevitably began to discover the reactionary traits, a certain craft narrowness, a certain tendency to apoliticism, some stagnation, etc. But only through trade unions, through their interaction with the party of the working class anywhere in the world development of the proletariat was not and could not go. The conquest of political power by the proletariat is a gigantic forward step for the proletariat, as a class, and the party has even more and in new ways, not just in the old way, to educate the unions, to direct them, however, however, do not forget that they remain, and long will remain necessary "school of communism" and a preparatory school for the implementation of the proletarians of their dictatorship, the necessary Union of the workers for the gradual transition into the hands of the working class (not individual jobs), and then all the workers, the management of the entire economy of the country.