Questions about trade unions became key at meetings of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions on March 8, 10 and 15, 1920. According to Kiselyov, by that time in the leading circles of trade union leaders, three political groups could be identified. The first could be attributed to David Riazanov and Mikhail Tomsky, who believed that trade unions should withdraw from economic affairs and deal primarily with the organization of labor. The second group included those workers who advocated the “merging” of trade unions with the state apparatus. And the third group consisted of Shlyapnikov's supporters, who believed that trade unions should become the sole responsible organizations in the field of the national economy of the RSFSR. Thus, already in the spring of 1920, a heated discussion about trade unions began in Soviet Russia: it became open only in late 1920 - early 1921. At that time, a five-member “trade union commission” was created for the central committees, the tasks of which included both studying and verifying the practical experience of the trade unions, and developing abstracts that would express the Central Committee’s point of view on this issue. However, Alexander Shlyapnikov, Yury Lutovinov and Leon Trotsky, initially included in this commission, refused to participate in it - which only aggravated the differences. Under these conditions, on December 24, the Plenum of the Central Committee decided to open a broad discussion on the question of trade unions.