ABSTRACT
The rapid rise of worker support was a major factor influencing the Bolshevik campaign against the unions. Bolshevik weakness in the labor movement had one other dimension. Of the roughly 28 All-Russian and 900 local unions, few except the metal workers' and textile workers', two of the largest, supported the Bolsheviks. The national Railway Workers' Union, allegedly the largest and most effectively organized of Russian trade unions, posed a major problem for the Bolsheviks from the very first hours of the November coup. The second taste of labor opposition came from the state employees. The Bolsheviks also had the support of the All-Russian Textile Workers' Union. The Printers' Union was a somewhat different case, but the pattern was the same. The All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions used its authority to set up a rival union to capture the union's machinery and to isolate the Menshevik leaders.
