ABSTRACT
Unions expressly have the right to appear representing workers before government and other public organs and to represent workers on all questions of labour and life. It is stated in the 1963 union statute: ‘trade unions defend the interests of workers and employees’. In the early years of the Soviet Union there was a lack of professional management specialists sympathetic to the revolutionary regime. The management group or stratum has changed over the years but it has shown no disposition to change the economic and social system itself. The Soviet Union has in the Communist Party a structured and elaborated institution designed to grip the society in one hand and reach out to victory over the challenge of modernisation with the other. In Durkheim’s terms Soviet workers have bases for association and for solidarity provided both by enterprises and by unions.
