In the revolutionary period of 1917 there were two labor organizations in Petrograd, Russia. One was factory committees and the other was trade unions. Whereas the former was quite strong and steady in representing factory workers’ demands and implementing the movement for workers’ control over production, the latter was more or less retarded in doing so. After the seizure of political power in October 1917, however, the Bolshevik leadership made a decision to merge factory committees into trade unions as their basic organs. The Bolshevik Party and many labor leaders thought that such a step would lead to the strengthened system of trade unions, which could serve the contruction of socialist economy in Soviet Russia. Contrary to their rosy expectations, the attempt to merge trade unions and factory committees into one organization ended in a failure during the Russian Civil War. For trade unions did not have enough strength to exert influence on factory committees and, in their turn, factory committees adhered to their own autonomy. The leaders of trade unions tried to contain the autonomous factory committees, but in vain. In conclusion the decision to merge factory committees into trade unions in January of 1918 proved to be a fatal fiasco detrimental to the vitality of the Russian labor movement.