All-Russian Teachers' Union

Last updated March 08, 2019

The All-Russian Teachers' Union (Vserossiiskii soiuz uchitelei, or VUS^[1]) was a trade union for teachers founded in the 1890s^[2] and active during the Russian revolutions of 1917. It was dissolved in December 1918 following conflict with the Bolsheviks.

A trade union, also called a labour union or labor union (US), is an organization of workers who have come together to achieve many common goals, such as protecting the integrity of their trade, improving safety standards, and attaining better wages, benefits, and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by the creation of a monopoly of the workers. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment". This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies.

The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917 which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917. Alongside it arose grassroots community assemblies which contended for authority. In the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was toppled and all power was given to the Soviets.

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists or Bolsheviki, were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party.

Conflict with Bolsheviks

After the Bolshevik seizure of power in the October Revolution, the VUS went on strike along with officials of the Ministry of Education and the State Education Committee. The Petrograd branch of the VUS resolved "not to perform the instructions of the self-styled power."^[3] They stayed out on strike until 6 January 1918. The Moscow branch, with around 4000 members, joined the strike of municipal workers, and remained on strike until 11 March 1918.^[3] The Bolsheviks claimed that the VUS was receiving financial backing from Pavel Ryabushinsky. Anatoly Lunacharsky commented in Petrogradskii uchitel:

The October Revolution, officially known in Soviet historiography as the Great October Socialist Revolution and commonly referred to as the October Uprising, the October Coup, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Bolshevik Coup or the Red October, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 7 November 1917.

Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits, 17 million within the urban area and 20 million within the metropolitan area. Moscow is one of Russia's federal cities.

'We are obliged to dismiss for ever from school activity these honourable gentlemen who, in spite of our appeal, prefer to continue in the role of political matadors rather than the role of teachers.

'I do not know what quantity of repentant tears the individual teachers may, in the eyes of the people, wash away the black letters which he himself has painted on his forehead: "In December 1917, in the hour of the people's terrible struggle against the exploiters, I refused to teach the children and received money for this from the exploiters' funds."

^[3]

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References

↑ Seregny, Scott Joseph (1989). Russian Teachers and Peasant Revolution: The Politics of Education in 1905. Indiana University Press. p. 115. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
↑ "Faculty News" (PDF). Department of History and Geography. Columbus State University. February 2007. p. 3. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
1 2 3 Fitzpatrick, Sheila (2002). The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-521-07919-8.

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[1] Seregny, Scott Joseph (1989). Russian Teachers and Peasant Revolution: The Politics of Education in 1905. Indiana University Press. p. 115. Retrieved 17 July 2015.

[2] "Faculty News" (PDF). Department of History and Geography. Columbus State University. February 2007. p. 3. Retrieved September 16, 2012.

[Fitzpatrick-3] 1 2 3 Fitzpatrick, Sheila (2002). The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-521-07919-8.