Of these, two sit in the Council of People's Commissars (Sownarkom), one with a deciding vote, Schmidt, as People's Commissar of Labor, and M. Tomski with a consultative voice. Besides, Tomski takes part in the Committee of Defense of the Soviet Republic, with a deciding vote. Both are communists, members of the bolshevik party, to which also all the others mentioned belong. Non-members of the bolshevik party cannot be elected to the Central Council of the All-Russian Unions.
The functions of this Central Council of the All-Russian Unions are:
1. Regulating the work and the wages (sanctioning of the wage scale). Dividing of the workers into three groups, by means of which the qualified workers, the premiums and the rations are determined. The establishment of a scientific institute for calculation of the workers' expenditure of energy.
2. The establishment of a labor secretariat to include all unions, 25 instructors are sent to the different gouvernements for the carrying out of this measure in the provinces and to fix membership contributions. At present the contribution amounts to 2% of the wages. It is obligatory and is deducted from the wages.
3. Culture department: Representatives are sent to the presiding board of the Commissariat of Education, in order to organize, under the leadership of that commissariat, continuation schools for the working youth and establish evening courses for all workers.
4. Participation in the work of the Supreme Council of National Economy.
Besides the above mentioned presiding board of eleven persons there is a general session of representatives of the Central Committees of the various industrial unions. This consists of 40 persons.
b) Gouvernement or Provincial Councils. In order to transmit these functions to the ranks of the workers, the Central Council sends its decisions (partly of their own making) , as well as the decrees of the Supreme Council of National Economy or the Commissariat of Labor to the gouvernement or provincial Councils of the unions in all crafts or industries, as well as to the central committees of the Industrial Unions.
These ' 'gouvernement councils" consist of 7-15 persons. They are elected by the local district councils of all unions. The gouvernement councils comprises all the workers of all occupations in a gouvernement. The functions of a gouvernement council are to carry out the decisions and the tasks referred to it by the Central Council of the Ail-Russian Unions which are worked out on the basis of the functions outlined in the above mentioned f our paragraphs.
c) The Local District Councils. They are elected by all the organized workers of the whole local district (in German "Kreis"') They consist of 5-9 members. Their tasks are to carry out the work turned over to them by the gouvernement union councils.