The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in the Soviet Union. It was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov and Alexandra Kollantai and was in essence a left-wing communist movement designed to ensure that the promises made by the Bolsheviks at the time of the October Revolution were kept. For other usage of the initials CPSU see CPSU (disambiguation). ... 1920 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... Alexander Gavrilovich Shlyapnikov (in Russian, Александр Гаврилович Шляпников) (1885-1937) was a Russian communist. ... Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й — born Domontovich, Домонто́вич) (March 31 (March 19, O.S.), 1872 - March 9, 1952) was a Ukrainian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ...

Specifically the Workers' Opposition demanded a greater economic plan that would increase production, Russia to be ruled by the trade unions, the equalisation of wages, the free distribution of food, and the gradual replacement of monetary payment with payment in kind. They also argued against the use of bourgeois specialists in the running of industry and warned against what they perceived to be the emergent "cult of personality" surrounding Vladimir Lenin. A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) (April 22 (April 10 (O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the founder of the ideology of Leninism, later expanded into...

However, at the tenth congress of the Communist Party, in 1921 Lenin successfully managed to have the Workers' Opposition proscribed. Thereafter Shlyapnikov and Kollantai became politically marginalised. 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Although the Workers' Opposition contained elements on its left wing who had views similar to those of Left Communists there was no continuity bewteen it and the earlier faction of Left-Communists in either personel or theory. In contrast to the Left Communists of 1918 the Workers Opposition was narrowly focused on the organisation of industry in the new Russian state that emerged after 1918 and was based upon a section of the party closely involved in this sphere of work. Similarly the Workers Opposition had little in common with the tiny post-1918 groups of Left Communists, for example the Workers Group and Workers Truth, in that its activity was confined to the ranks of the Russian Communist Party alone. Left Communism is a term describing a whole range of communist viewpoints which oppose the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position which is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views held by the Communist International after its first two Congresses. ...