Trade-union debate (Russia)

Trade-union debate was a political discussion between the end of 1920 and the spring of 1921 inside the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the role of the trade unions in Soviet Russia. The debate's result was a rejection by the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party of the views of Trotsky, who was supported by the 9th Secretariat (Nikolay Krestinsky, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky and Leonid Serebryakov), the Workers' Opposition, and the Democratic Centralists. The resolution On the Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions, which incorporated Vladimir Lenin’s definition of the role of the trade unions as educational organizations and schools of administration, economic management and communism, was adopted by a majority vote.

The three secretaries of the Central Committee then had to resign. Krestinsky lost his Politburo, Orgburo, and Secretariat posts and became the Soviet ambassador to Germany.