The daily worker. [volume], September 20, 1924, Magazine Supplement, Page 3, Image 7

About The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958

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Unity of the International Trade Union Movement
By A. LOZOVSKY
DURING the course of its develop
ment the labor movement has
undergone many crises. One of the
most important of these crises, owing
to its character and consequences, is
the national and international split in
the trade union movement. The root
and source of this split is to be traced
back to the outbreak of the war, when
the leading elements of the socialist
parties and of the trade unions identi
fied the fate of the labor organizations
with the fate of the capitalists of
their respective countries. The four
years of war and the six years of
peace which followed it opened the
eyes of broad masses of workers and
made it clear to them wherein lies
the source of weakness of the prole
tarian masses. This experience has
proved the following: the more peace
fully the socialist parties and trade
unions were disposed towards the
bourgeoisie, the deeper they drove a
wedge into the working class. The
history of the last ten years is the
history of the decay of the social de
mocratic parties and of the reformist
trade unions; it is the history of a
slow recovery on the part of the pro
letarian rank and file by means of the
founding of Communist parties and
revolutionary trade unions, or trade
union minorities. The splitting of the
political parties, the drawing of all
sound proletarian elements away from
the influence of these parties, was
the prerequisite for the overcoming
of the crisis. The process of the for
mation of the Communist parties
began, with the exception of Russia,
with the commencement of the war
and found its international expression
in the formation of the Communist
International, the five years existence
and success of which we have recently
celebrated. While the political labor
movement faces all the revolutionary
elements with the direct task of build
ing up the Communist parties as
rapidly as possible, the interests of
the labor movement demand the pre
servation at all costs of the unity of
the revolutionary movement by means
of a struggle within the trade unions
for a revolutionary program and
revolutionary tactics. There is no
contradiction in the fact that the revo
lutionary workers have, on the one
hand, split the social democratic and
the so-called independent parties in
order to form revolutionary Commu
nist organizations and that, on the
other hand, these same workers com
bat with all their power, those commu
nists, who wish to split the trade
unions. The different character
of these two types of workers’
organizations compels the communists
to conduct a different policy regarding
them in order to achieve the same
end: the capturing of the masses. The
setting up of the communist parties
was everywhere accompanied by the
slogan: “fight for the unity of the
trade unions, fight against the theory
of destroying the trade unions”, and
in those cases where such a theory
has arisen, the Communist Interna
tional declared the most energetic
fight against it.
But if the Comintern has always
fought against splitting the trade
union movement, why then was the
Red International of Labor Unions
created? The R.I.L.U. was created
after the Amsterdam International
had linked up its fate with the League
of Nations, after the Amsterdam Inter
national had. along with the represen
tatives of the largest employers’ or
ganizations, taken part in throttling
the revolutionary labor movement in
all countries, after the Amsterdam
International had proclaimed the
sharpest struggle against the Russian
revolution and the Communist Inter
national. From the beginning of 1920
the discontent with the old program
and the old tactics made its appear
ance in all countries, but this discon
tent did not yet possess a sufficiently
clear and definite ideological charact
er. It was necessary to bring together
these multifarious views, to assemble
the revolutionary forces existing in
the International trade union move
ment around an ideological and organ
izatory centre, to work out a clear
policy and to take up the struggle
against reformism which was poison
ing the labor movement in a common
revolutionary front. There therefore
arose in 1920 the R.I.L.U. which
continued to develop. From the first
day of its existence the R.I.L.U. em
phatically pronounced against the
flitting of the trade unions. That
*sone is to be seen from the following
facts:
1. The R.I.L.U. pronounced itself
against the slogan of destroying the
trade unions.
2. The R.I.L.U. proposed to the
Amsterdam International to restore
the unity of the French and Czecho
slovakian trade union movement.
3. The R.I.L.U. has at all its con
gresses decided that all revolutionary
unions shall affiliate to their respect
ive internationals.
4. The R.I.L.U. has several times
openly declared that the International
Propaganda Committees will be dis
solved as soon as the revolutionary
unions in question are admitted into
the respective internationals.
5. The R.I.L.U. at its 11. Congress
issued the slogan of the united front
and often approached the Amsterdam
International with the proposal for
common action.
RED UNIONS EXTEND FRIENDLY HAND
For a United international Trade Union Movement
6. At the International Peace Con
gress at the Hague the R.I.L.U. at
tempted to propose the united front
to the Amsterdam International. Simi
lar attempts were undertaken after
the Ruhr occupation and before and
after the Frankfort Conference.
7. The R.I.L.U. regards the united
front in the trade union movement as
the first step towards the organizatory
union of the divided portions of the
movement.
8. In every case in which tenden
cies to split the trade unions appeared
in the ranks of the Comintern and the
R.I.L.U. the R.I.L.U. has opposed this
attitude with the greatest determina
tion and defended the slogan of trade
union unity with all the means at its
disposal.
All these facts are known to those
who have more or lees carefully fol
lowed the activity of the R.1.L.U., the
decisions of its congresses and the
instructions of its executive organ.
How did the Amsterdam Interna
tional and the organizations affiliated
to it reply to all these measures of
the R.1.L.U.? They replied with a
furious campaign against the Commu
nists and with their expulsion from
the trade unions. If the R.I.L.U. had
allowed itself to be actuated by the
same motives as the Amsterdamers,
that is by the wish to get rid of their
opponents at any price, then to-day
the disruption of the trade unions
along the whole line would have been
an accomplished fact. The R.I.L.U.
was only prompted in its attitude by
its regard for the requirements of the
class struggle, and in spite of every
provocation stood by its standpoint:
against splits and for unity.
The 111. Congress of the R.I.L.U.
drew the logical conclusion from the
four years’ struggle for unity in pro
claiming the slogan of amalgamating
both Internationals by means of an
International Unity Congress. The
conditions for this have become much
more favourable, as the consciousness
of the necessity for unity has pene
trated the broadest masses. A change
can be seen in the English labor mo
vement as a result of the bourgeois
policy of the "Labor Government.”
We must openly admit that the
raising of this question at the Con
gress of the Comintern, as well as at
the Conference of- the R.1.L.U., met
with resistance. This resistance is
mainly to be explained by the fact
that the opponents of this slogan had
not thoroughly thought out the trade
union tactics of the R.I.L.U. and of the
Comintern. This slogan met with spe
cially energetic opposition on the part
of the German delegation which
regarded the slogan of the amalgama
tion of the two internationals as “op
portunism,” even “menshevism.” Why
the communists can be together with
the reformists in a common national
organization and why they cannot be
together in an international organiz
ation would be hard to say. The op
ponents of this slogan have unwit
tingly promoted the splitting tenden
cies which are to be found among
a section of the German workers. We
must prove our will to unity by facts,
and the proposal to convene an inter
national unity congress is the best
proof that trade union unity is for us
no empty phrase and no maneuver as
a few over-clever comrades think. The
National Council of the C. P. of Ger
many adopted a resolution regarding
this question which is anything but
clear. Here it was said that the
slogan of uniting both internationals
is to be understood in the sense that
unity is to be accomplished on the
basis of the programme of the R.I.L.U.
'To understand the decisions of the
R.I.L.U. and the Comintern in such
away is not to understand them at
all. Os course it would be best if all
the workers were to recognize the
platform of the R.1.L.U., but in that
case what sense would there lie to
speak of amalgamating the two inter
nationals? We propose however an
amalgamation of both internationals
and the creation of a united interna
tional in spite of the fact that half of
the organized workers do not accept
the program of the R. I. L. U. We
are not at all afraid of being ia an
3
international organization with such
people as do not recognize our pro
gram. Our program has been
recognized by history and it will
finally be recognized by the whole
working class. This unity proposal
vis not, as some comrades think, a
coalition between the leaders of the
R.I.L.U. and the Amsterdam Interna
tional. The unity of the international
trade union movement can be set up
in the event of our succeeding in
arousing ten millions of proletarians
to take an interest in this campaign,
Some comrades are so afraid of re
formism that they anxiously ask:
“What will happen if the Amsterdam
International accepts your proposal
and agrees to the International Unity
Congress?” To which we answer:
“Excellent! We will be only too pleas
ed if the Amsterdamers accept this
proposal, as it is precisely the task
of our unity resolution to realize this
unity.” “Well, and what if you are
in the minority in this united Inter
national?” ask the same comrades.—
"If we are in the minority then we
shall fight for the majority and hope
to win this majority.”—“You are pre
pared to take part in an international
unity Congress without any previous
conditions?”—“Yes, we are prepared
to take part in an international unity
congress without any previous con
ditions. The relation of forces at the
unity congress will decide the pro
gram and tactics of the new inter
national.”—“And if the Amsterdamers
lay down conditions, what then?”—“lf
that is the case, the negotiations will
soon show what conditions of either
party are acceptable and what are
not acceptable by both parties. The
working masses will judge them
selves.” —“And if the Amsterdamers
refuse negotiations regarding unity?”
—“lf they refuse so much the worse
for them. We will not abandon our
struggle for unity.”
In our struggle for unity we have
our eye on the masses and attach very
little value to the good-will and the
mood of this or that leader. As soon
as the unity of the international trade
union movement is a necessity for the
masses, we have to fight for this
unity and mobilize the broadest mass
es against those who oppose thii
unity. And there is not the lest doubt
that unity is threatened. The danger
comes from two sides: before all from
the side of the right wing of the Am
sterdam International. This was to
be seen at the Vienna Congress,
when the right Amsterdamers endea
voured to render the resolution as
vague as possible in order to leave
open every loophole. After the Vien
na Congress the Bureau of the Am
sterdam International sent a letter
to the All-Russian Central Trade
Union Council proposing negotiations
on the basis of the decisions adopted
in Vienna. To these negotiations the
Amsterdamers attached the following
two conditions:
1. They will conduct negotiations
only with the Russian trade unions
and only with regard to the affiliation
of the Russian Trade Unions to Am
sterdam.
2. The negotiations regarding the
affiliation shall have as their basis
the program and statutes of the
Amsterdam International.
That the Amsterdamers laid down
such conditions is not to be wondered
at. They are continuing the sabotage
which they began at the Vienna Con
gress. If we look up the letters which
have passed between the Amsterdam
International and the All-Russian
Trade Union Council during the last
two or three years, we see that all
these proposals have already been
made on many occasions, to which
the All-Russian Trade Union Council
has always replied that it had no hand
in drawing up the program and the
statutes of the Amsterdam Interna
tional and therefore has no reason to
recognize them as pre-conditions. It
is in this manner that the right Am
sterdamers sabotage the unity of the
trade union movement. There is
nothing surprising in this. But it is
less easy to understand why the re
presentatives of the left wing take
part in this combination. Do the
leaders of the left wing of the Am
sterdam International belive that this
way is the shortest cut to the restora-