The performance of Soviet trade unions has already been evaluated by several scholars and observers from the West. Obviously such a body of academic literature will contain conflicting viewpoints, and Western opinion seems to fall into three groups: Some argue that Soviet trade unions are worthy of study only insofar as they can be shown to be weak. Others believe significant trade union activity is evident in the Soviet Union but disagree about its importance and the role played by local union organizations. This group minimizes the role of factory trade union agencies, either because of widespread Soviet democratic centralism or because of more universal institutional dynamics that make local bureaucrats more accountable to central bureaucracies than to local constituencies. The third group acknowledges centralizing tendencies but considers their overall effect on local union organization to be less than crippling.

Writers who share the first opinion focus on features of Soviet trade unions such as their inability to conduct meaningful collective bargaining, strike, and express concern over short-term economic conditions. They believe that these characteristics define Soviet trade union activity in the past and the present. If the unions have no basic rights, Jay Sorenson and others argue, whatever they do benefits only the state. They conclude that Soviet trade unions are inherently ineffectual as labor organizations.

The second group believes that Soviet trade unions perform several essential managerial, educational, and advocacy functions. These writers emphasize centralizing forces within Soviet society that force the overall unions to be subservient to Party interests and to make local union officials overly dependent on their superiors.