Archive
of the
Red International of Labour Unions
Resolutions and Decisions
of the
Second World Congress
of the
Red International of Labour Unions:
Moscow — November 1922.
Published as No. 6 in the Labor Herald Library (Chicago: Trade Union Educational League, 1923).
Resolution
on the
Report of the Executive Bureau.
Having heard the report of the Executive Bureau, the Second World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions declares that the EB has fulfilled the tasks imposed upon it by the First International Congress of the RILU, and resolves:
1. To approve of the activities of the Executive Bureau directed towards the establishment of the United Front for the purpose of counteracting the advance of capital and of uniting the working class for the preparation of the proletarian offensive.
2. The Congress approves of the repeated appeals of the Executive Bureau to the Amsterdam International for joint action against the bourgeoisie, and declares that the fact that joint action has not been taken is entirely due to the Amsterdam International, which has preferred cooperation with the bourgeoisie to cooperation with the revolutionary workers.
3. The Congress approves of the attempts of the Executive Bureau to draw all the anarcho-syndicalist organizations into the RILU for the joint struggle against the bourgeoisie and against reformism.
4. The Congress approves of the position taken by the Executive Bureau towards the attempt to split the revolutionary trade union movement under the banner of an “Independent,” but in reality an anarcho-
syndicalist International.
5. The Congress wishes to emphasize that some of the anarchistic groups working in the trade union movement, in the reaction against the RILU very often form a united front with the reformists and the bourgeoisie against the revolutionary Russian proletariat and against the Russian Revolution.
6. Considering the necessity of strengthening by all means the influence and the role of the International
Industrial Propaganda Committees, the Congress charges the newly elected Executive Bureau to strengthen, on the basis of a concrete program of action, their practical organizational and propaganda activity directed towards the concentration of all the revolutionary forces in the trade union movement along industrial lines on an international scale.
7. Stating that up to now the organizations affiliated with the RILU have not been connected with the centre to a sufficient degree, the Congress considers it as the most important task of the Executive Bureau to establish regular and systematic connections with all the organizations, and to extend and to strengthen the work of agitating and uniting the masses in order to build up militant and hardened experienced unions, for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and for the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Organization Problem of the Adherents of the RILU.
I
General Part.
The trade unions have come into being as organs of resistance to the exploitation of labor. At a certain stage of the development of the capitalist contradictions, the trade unions turn from organs of resistance against separate employers, into organs of attack against the capitalist system as a whole. The difference between the reformist and the revolutionary unions consists in the following; while the former wish to fight against the negative sides of capitalism, the revolutionary unions put forward the overthrow of capitalist rule as their main object. While for the Amsterdam unions, reforms are an aim in itself, for the revolutionary unions, reforms are a subsidiary result of their struggle.
2. During the great war the machinery of the trade union headquarters grew into organs of the bourgeois state. The trade unions became the basis and support of the bourgeois dictatorship. The post-war crises, unemployment and impoverishment of the masses, called forth spontaneous discontent and fermentation amongst the masses which forced the governing classes to proclaim the era of social reforms. At this stage the trade union bureaucracy acted as the bearer of social reformism, which ends together with the first ebb of the revolutionary wave.
3. The ebb of the labor movement is the beginning of a well thought out, well shaped, systematic attack of capitalism upon the essentials of the workers’ attainments. As a result of this systematic pressure on the part of the bourgeoisie, the trade unions internally reconstruct themselves. In the first place they shrink. A certain proportion of the workers, disappointed with the futile activity of the trade unions and their helplessness to render some kind of resistance to the attacks of capitalism, split. The most active leave the old positions, and thus a continuous movement from the right to left is going on among the rank and file — a move from the reformist positions to the revolutionary. While the leaders are organically connected with the bourgeois state, the masses are spasmodically searching in the revolution for a way out from the deadlock in which the working class finds itself at present.
4. Thus, within the old trade unions, a deep fermentation and regrouping of forces is going on. The move of the masses towards the left imperils the position of the trade union bureaucracy and their whole policy. Therefore, simultaneously with the deep fermentation within the masses, and the search of the trade union bureaucracy for a way out, the revolutionary elements are being pressed in order to destroy the organizational centers in the trade unions, which could set clear aims and tasks for the revolutionary energy of the masses. The expulsion of the left wing elements is becoming the most important method of struggle on the part of the reformists, as this is the only means of
retarding their fall as well as the fall of the whole capitalist system.
5. The more acute the struggle between labor and capital becomes, the clearer becomes the aim of the revolutionary wing of the labor movement. The trade unions must transform themselves from organs of self-defense within the capitalist system into organs for the overthrow of the capitalist rule, and the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The more clear these practical tasks become to the working class, the more aggressive becomes capitalist conservatism, not only against our aim, but also against our methods of attaining the object in front of us. This conservatism finds its best expression in the reformist trade unions.
II.
The Struggle for
Strengthening the Trade Unions.
6. The ruin which the capitalist offensive has produced in the trade unions represents the greatest danger to the working class. Therefore, the most important task of the near future is to rally the split workers, to increase the forces and the power of the unions, and to draw the large masses into the trade union organizations. Not a single worker should remain outside the trade unions -- such is our watchword. Therefore, the most vigorous opposition should be shown to any attempt of the workers to leave the unions, whatever the motive may be for such action.
7. It is particularly necessary to carry on the struggle against the theory of leaving the unions due to would-be revolutionary motives. There is still a considerable group of workers who think that the quitting of the reformist unions is a sign of their being revolutionary. They declare the trade unions hopeless, and they think of bringing nearer the social revolution by the creation of small unions. But however revolutionary these people may be in spirit, their advocacy must be met with the most resolute resistance. In the best case they raise the weakness to a principle. If the reformists’ mass unions are hopeless, this necessitates the giving up for the time being of the social revolution,
because without the workers organized in trade unions the social revolution is impossible.
8. The struggle for strengthening the tradeunions may bring out essential results, only if it is carried on upon the basis of a practical program but not on the basis of abstract principles. The attraction of the masses to the trade unions may be achieved only in consequence of a steadfast, systematic struggle for the daily demands and needs of the workers. Thus, the best method of strengthening the trade unions is the initiative in the practical struggle in the formulation and realization of a concrete program of action.
III.
Partial Demands and Final Aims.
9. The formulation of a program of action for each country, and for each industry should be the most important task of the adherents of the RILU A vigorous struggle should be carried on against the attempt to represent the struggle for partial demands as a decline from revolutionary principles. Revolutionary action does not mean a mere repetition of revolutionary phrases, but it means revolutionary methods in carrying out the outlined program. The same partial demand will be carried out by the reformist and the revolutionary unions in various ways. While for the reformist unions the partial demand is an aim in itself, they are for the revolutionary unions just a means of consolidating and organizing the masses for the further struggle. The struggle for partial demands does not turn us away from the goal, but brings us nearer to it. We should fight against the anarchist prejudice, that the struggle for partial demands are below our
revolutionary prestige. This is harmful verbosity, which handicaps the organizing of the masses and the preparations
for revolutionary action.
10. The object of the adherents of the RILU is to carry on the whole work for the partial demands, having in view our final aims. Contradiction between the partial demands and our final aims arises when we cut off one from the other. Abstract propaganda of our final aims may weaken the trade union organizations which embraces the workers of various currents of thought. On the contrary, practical action by our organizations, a concrete program, a systematic and steadfast struggle for the daily needs of the workers, will draw to our ranks an ever new stratum of workers who, passing through the school of the elementary class struggle, will rise to Communist class-consciousness.
IV.
Struggle Against the Expulsion
of the Adherents of the RILU.
11. The ever-growing revolutionizing of the masses forces the trade union bureaucracy to mechanically suppress the opposition. The trade union bureaucracy resorts to various forms and methods of struggle, according to countries and interrelation of forces, from the expulsion of separate persons and groups, up to the exclusion of thousands of
workers. The task of the adherents of the RILU in this respect is quite clear. The most violent struggle should be carried on against the expulsions of the opposition. The struggle should be carried out by all methods.
12. It is necessary to make clear to the masses the causes of these expulsions. At every workers’ meeting,
in every workshop and in every factory, the question of the readmission of those expelled should be raised. The question should be referred to the judgment of the large masses. Discussions in small circles on this subject are quite futile. The opposition is being expelled, not because it is breaking class solidarity, not because it refuses to participate in the joint struggle against the bourgeoisie, but because it hampers cooperation with the bourgeoisie.
13. Those expelled should not remain isolated for one day. The forms of their organizations may change in accordance with local conditions. But whatever the form of the organization of the expelled may be, they must carry on a steadfast struggle for their readmission, strengthening their organization, on the basis of practical struggle against the employers.
V.
The Minorities of the Old Unions and
the Independent Revolutionary Unions.
14. Great numbers of the adherents of the RILU are within the old reformist unions. In some countries
they are organized in Communist groups, in others, in an opposition, and in some, as propaganda leagues, etc. Owing to their various organizational forms, and the fact that they remain with the old unions, they do not represent well-shaped organizations, and therefore, it is very hard to register them. But there is no doubt that their numbers are growing daily, and they carry on ever so much serious work, handicapping the Amsterdam politicians in their treacherous policy. Thus, a great number of revolutionary workers are connected with Amsterdam in organization, but in ideology and in the political field, with Moscow.
15. The task of the minorities affiliated to the RILU is to shape themselves, and to exactly number their members. In a number of countries it is very hard to define the sphere of influence of the minorities affiliated to the RILU This lack of registration has very serious political consequences, because the adherents of the RILU in these countries do not know exactly their forces and possibilities. The methodical unification of the adherents of the RILU, the exact registration of the membership, the elaboration of a single line of action, preliminary constant conferences dealing
with the main questions of the labor movement, are prerequisites of any revolutionary action. The adherents of the RILU should pay their main attention to the winning over of the masses in the main branches of industry and the main industrial districts. Every factory, every workshop, should become our base.
16. Apart from the minorities which are only in ideology united with the RILU, there are, nearly in all countries, independent revolutionary organizations also affiliated to the RILU The most important task of the adherents of the RILU wherever they may be, is coordination of action, close cooperation, and constant mutual support in the struggle against reformism and capitalism The minorities in the old unions, and the Independent revolutionary unions should from a United Council of Action, for constant work and joint cooperation.
VI.
Centralism and Federalism.
17. The conditions of the modern struggle of the working class demand the maximum of strain and concentration of its forces. The process of unification (amalgamation) is going on even in countries where old sectional traditions and a disruptive trade union movement exists. But this process of unification of kindred trade unions remains considerably behind the demands of the struggle. Old habits and traditions have a strong hold even in the minds of many
revolutionary leaders.
18. Under the flag of autonomy and federalists, small unions and federations continue their miserable
existence, having neither strength nor means to fight against capital, and yet refusing to amalgamate with kindred trades. Such sectionalism, under the flag of Federalism, exists in France, Spain, and other countries. The task of the adherents of the RILU is to carry on a vigorous struggle against this covered sectionalism which greatly harms the struggle of the working class for its emancipation. A vigorous struggle should be carried on for the creation of centralized industrial organizations. It is necessary to strive towards concentration of the means and the methods of the struggle, for a national utilization of all the forces of the working class. Under present circumstances such federalism greatly handicaps the development of the working class movement, and it should be met with a most
vigorous resistance.
19. A strong movement towards the fashioning of a united organization has arisen in many countries, as a result of the continuous sectional egoism within the working masses. This movement is a healthy protest against the disruption of the working class into small sectional organizations. In its development, this sectional movement assumed in some countries the form of one big union, which has one executive and one fund together with the industrial sections. Such
an organizational form, which entirely destroys the industrial unions, is irrational and does not correspond with the present conditions of struggle. This is a form which the unions will adopt in consequence of the long struggle for the unification of the kindred unions, and after the triumph of the social revolution. The immediate transition from sectional unions to one big union may bring about internal strife among the revolutionary unions, and therefore, such organizational measures should be adopted with great care. The most important task is the creation of centralized industrial unions, and centralized general trade union headquarters for each country.
VII.
The Struggle for Factory Committees.
20. The creation of Factory Committees is the most important preliminary and most important weapon of the revolutionary class struggle. The reformists have well appreciated the significance of the Factory Committees, and in those countries such as Germany, Austria, and Czecho-Slovakia, where the rule of the bourgeoisie has been threatened, the Factory Committees have been driven, with the assistance of the reformists, into the limits of law. And thus the first stage of the struggle for the creation of revolutionary Factory Committees has been broken up. The
most important tasks of the adherents of the is the struggle for utilizing and revolutionizing the present Factory ‘Committees, and to create new ones.
21. The Factory Committees are the primary organs of unity of the working class. This is the most natural representation of the workers of a factory or a concern, and the activity of the working class can manifest itself only when it possesses such an organizational nuclei. The Factory Committee should embrace all the workers of this or that concern. The greatest danger for the revolutionary trade union movement are talks on Factory Committees, without a serious and consecutive struggle for the realization of this watchword. The adherents of the RILU should unceasingly propagate the Factory Committees, and should soon set to the fashioning of such, whenever there is the slightest possibility to do so.
22. It is particularly easy to create such Factory Committees during conflicts and periods of fermentation among the masses. As soon as a strike breaks out in any factory or concern; apart from the creation
of the Strike Committee, a Factory Committee should be elected by all the workers for connections with the Strike Committee and with the union. This Factory Committee should be the intermediary between the rank and file, the union, and the Strike Committee. This representation of the workers fashioned in the process of the struggle, will gain a place in the labor movement. Even after the strike the workers will always resort to the Factory Committee in all serious stages of their struggle.
23. The struggle for the Factory Committees should not bear an abstract propaganda character. It should be based upon the concrete position of the working class in a given industry. The Factory Committees themselves should have concrete and well defined aims. Therefore the program of action formulated by the general trade union center, and by separate unions, should contain definite practical items, and practical tasks with which the Factory Committee of the given industry is faced. The struggle itself for the creation of the Factory Committees will draw in the non-organized workers, force them to react to the oppression of their leaders, and will be the vanguard of the working class with the whole mass of the workers. The struggle of the creation of Factory Committees and the revolutionary work within them, will bring the adherents of the RILU in the closest contact with the masses and will be the best surety against
bureaucratism which eats up the workers’ organizations.
VIII.
Our Tasks in the
Most Important Countries.
24. In Germany, where the work of the adherents of the RILU is centered mainly around the old unions, the main task is to increase the work and to organize the masses which have, in the political field, turned to the left. The revolutionary groups should exactly count their real forces. In all questions referring to the trade union movement they should in due
time rally all class-conscious elements in the struggle for the concrete objects. The groups of the industrial unions should unite more closely locally, and on a national scale. In order to prepare the ideology and the organization of the masses for the transition to the system of industrial unions and also for the coordination of action of the separate industrial groups during conflicts, regular cooperation is necessary between the various trade union groups and the factory groups within the industrial groups. The methods of propaganda and organization of the opposition should be
elaborated accordingly.
25. The revolutionary members of the trade unions should carry on a resolute and well-thoughtout struggle for the strengthening of the trade unions, especially in cases where the reformists are undermining their unity. The expelled groups should preserve their organization, keeping in the closest contact with the masses who have remained in the trade unions, and uniting with the other expelled groups, with the independent revolutionary unions, and with the organized opposition. The Union of Manual and Brain Workers should pay their utmost attention to the winning over of the miners, which is the most urgent task of the whole revolutionary trade union movement in Germany. The Union of Manual and Brain Workers should create a considerable militant fund and should become an important support of the Workers’ Council.
26. The Workers’ Council should act as a representative of the whole opposition, carrying on its work independently and on a well-though-out plan. The Workers’ Council should carry on a resolute struggle against the disruptive policy of the Amsterdamers and for the unification of all the workers organized in the trade unions. It should establish in each separate case the most rational method of organizing the expelled. All organizations united in the Workers’ Council should assist each other in their daily struggle. The RILU will, under no circumstances, tolerate strife among them. The Union of Manual and Brain Workers and Union of Seamen as members of the Workers’
Council should lend active support to the opposition within the independent unions and assist it in its difficult
task of revolutionizing the masses organized in the trade unions and should carry on its work and its general policy in accordance with this principle. On the other hand, the opposition should help to strengthen the Union of Manual and Brain Workers and the Union of Seamen externally and internally.
27. In France the GCTU does not differ in organization from the reformist organizations. Forty federations still exist under the flag of Federalism and autonomy, the greater part of which is quite impotent in view of its weakness. A vigorous struggle should be carried on for the fusion of the kindred federations for the concentration of the forces, for the creation of the Industrial Union as well as the creation of Factory Committees. Agitation and propaganda should be centralized and a struggle should be carried on for the increase of membership dues to the GCTU, so that its work could be extended. The immediate task of the GCTU is an active propaganda campaign and an intensive struggle for winning over the non-organized masses to the trade unions and the absorbing by the GCTU of those elements which are still following the instructions of the GCTU, as well as the workers in the unions of other currents of thought.
28. The GCTU should be the bearer of unity of the whole trade union movement in France. In so far as there are in the reformist unions organized minorities in sympathy with the GCTU, the latter should not create any rival organizations.
The adherents of the RILU should systematically organize their groups within the reformist unions and should carry on a struggle for unity within and without.
A resolute struggle should be carried on against the methods of organizing action inherited by the GCTU from the old reformist organizations. It should be noted that the first steps in this direction have been made already (International Conferences, the election of an Executive Commission by the National Congress, the United Propaganda Committees, etc.), but evidently in order to overthrow capitalism it is necessary to strive towards the maximum of concentration of all revolutionary forces, united in the GCTU.
The anarchist federalism, hampering the creation of a powerful organization, is a sign of weakness of the working class movement. The trade union movement, founded on a federalist basis, will never be in a position to defeat the centralized bourgeois state. This type of organization is adapted to defeats, but not to conquests.
29. The disintegration and federalism of the French trade union movement have created in certain organizations a tendency to solve this question on a local scale. In Alsace-Lorraine, a single union has been formed which unites all industries. By this the local movement is cut off from the national federations. Such an isolation of the Alsace-Lorraine proletariat should be condemned. The more is such a local solution of the problem inadmissible because it may bring about the pitting of the workers of various nationalities against each other.
30. In England, the organization of the opposition is yet in its infancy. Our most important task in England for the near future is to organize, on a national scale, all oppositional groups and unions. This can be accomplished only by a national conference of the opposition, which will found general headquarters. The activities of the adherents of the RILU should be directed towards this aim.
31. The struggle for the Factory Committees in England has almost stopped now. The Factory Committees
which came into being during the war have entirely disappeared, and neither the party nor the opposition of the trade unions devote their efforts to the creation of real revolutionary Factory Committees. However, in this country, the question of creating revolutionary Factory Committees is the most important issue of the day, which should not, under any circumstances, be put on the shelf. The whole activity of the adherents of the RILU for the near future should be concentrated upon the most important industries, such as the mining industry, the metallurgical, and transport, and only after the opposition will strengthen itself in these unions can it extend its influence upon other organizations. The work of the adherents of the RILU should be of a more concrete practical character. Not one mass movement, especially the movement of the unemployed, should remain without the influence of the Communists and the adherents of the
RILU.
32. In Italy, the unity of the proletariat is the nearest task of the adherents of the RILU. The attempt to unify the Communists and the socialists opposition as well as the adherents of the RILU into the Union of the Italian Syndicalists and into the Union of the Railwaymen upon a united platform should be continued. A constant and persistent struggle should be carried on for the unification of all trade union organizations. The events through which Italy is passing now are quite favorable for the work of unification, and they should be utilized in this direction.
33. In view of the existence of well organized Communist groups, the adherents of the RILU in Italy
should carry on a vigorous struggle for the reorganizations of the trade unions upon industrial lines, and for
the winning over of the Union of Transport Workers. The fact that part of the leaders of the Union of Seamen
went over to the side of Mussolini makes it easier for us to work among the transport workers. We must
seize the Federation of Transport Workers from the influence of the Fascisti politicians.
34. The adherents of the RILU should devote their utmost effort to the creation of an Alliance of Labor with local branches as a transitional form of unity. In order that the Alliance of Labor should actually reflect the mood of the workers, the composition of this alliance should be constructed on the basis of direct representation of the masses. In view of the fact that there is in the Fascisti trade unions a considerable number of town; and agricultural workers deceived by demagogy and drawn into those organizations by force it should be the task of the adherents of the RILU
in Italy to develop among them an intensive agitation and propaganda work in order to free this stratum of workers from the influence of patriotic nationalism and to draw them into the channels of the working class movement.
35. In Czecho-Slovakia, owing to the disruptive and provocative policy of the Amsterdamers, the trade union movement has been disintegrated. A revolutionary trade union center with a single guiding headquarters
and with separate industrial sections has been formed. The main task of the new center is to unify the disintegrated organizations. Owing to the peculiarities of the Czecho-Slovakian political life the unions of this country are divided by the national principle. A struggle against the national unions and for the class unions should be carried on by all necessary means. The one big union should be constructed upon the basis of the financial, organizational, militancy and selfactivity of the industrial sections.
36. The task of the new trade union center is to unify the whole Czecho-Slovakian proletariat. In accordance
with this the adherents of the RILU in Czecho-Slovakia should increase their work among the masses who have remained in the old reformist unions. The creation of new organizational forms should not hamper their work, and it should not handicap the restoration of the necessary unity in the future. The organizational requirements of all separate parts of the whole Czechian proletariat of various industries and nationalities should be satisfied within the limits of the international, single Czechian organization.
37. In the United States, where the Trade Union Educational League and the Independent Revolutionary
Unions exists, it is necessary to strive towards close cooperation between these organizations. This cooperation
should be based upon jointly carrying out a single practical program of action, jointly formulated.
38. The Trade Union Educational League which has carried out extensive work during its short existence, should strive to base its support upon a collective membership. The right course taken by this League against disruption and for the winning over of the trade unions should not be carried to organizational fetishism. It is necessary to fight disruption, but it should be borne in mind that there is a great number of organized left wing workers outside the American Federation of Labor, and that the great majority of the American proletariat is outside any organization.
39. Contact should be established in the work of the adherents of the RILU in all trade union organizations in America. A position here exists of rival organizations, which declare their affiliation to the RILU, but which do not wish to unite among themselves, in the general leadership of the work, out of some local or personal consideration, cannot be tolerated. A Council of Action should be fashioned for coordinating the work of the minorities in the American
Federation of Labor, the IWW and the Independent unions.
40. In Spain, regardless of the fervent desire for unity among the working masses, the trade union bureaucrats
have expelled many organizations. The expelled unions should not remain isolated. They should devote their efforts to return to the union from which they were expelled, but if they cannot succeed in being readmitted they should affiliate to another trade union center. The RILU has strong oppositional minorities in both trade union centers of Spain, in the General Union of Workers affiliated to Amsterdam and the National Confederation of Labor of the Anarcho-Syndicalist current of thought. Both minorities should coordinate their activities) through the mixed Council
of Action, the main tasks of which is the creation of one trade union center, which should unite all workers and propagate the principles and methods of the RILU. This Council should also strive to form relations with the independent unions which do not belong to either of the present trade union centers, in order to connect them directly with the struggle for trade union unity. With regard to the employers and the police unions, which are known in some towns of Spain under the name of free unions, the adherents of the RILU should occupy a definite expressed position, and should undertake a resolute campaign against them, exposing them before the masses as a weapon of the hostile class, and condemning every attempt of even temporary agreement with them.
41. In the Balkan States, with the exception of Bulgaria where the trade union movement is united and affiliated to the RILU, the work of restoring the unity of the trade union movement has again to be resumed. The most difficult work is to be accomplished in Yugoslavia and Romania, where the revolutionary trade unions were destroyed in 1920-21 by the White Terror and the violent reaction on the one hand, and by the disruptive policy of the reformists on the other.
The more energetically the unions strive towards unifying the working masses for the defense of their daily interests and for the struggle against the offensive of capital, the quicker and the more successfully will these difficulties be overcome.
In Greece, where the Confederation of Labor stands actually on the platform of the RILU, the task of the adherents of the latter should be to carry on a resolute struggle against the treacherous policy of the handful of yellow nationalistic leaders in order to seize from their influence the remaining trade union organizations which still belong to them, and, in particular, the Dockers’ Union, which should be united within the ranks of the General Confederation of Labor.
In Turkey, where the workers are mainly organized in separate national unions (the Turkish, Greek and Armenian) the chief task of the adherents of the RILU should be to increase the work of unification of these unions into General Industrial Unions on the basis of the active class struggle, regardless of their belonging to this or that nationality.
In view of the close economic and political dependence of the Balkan States upon each other, joint concerted action of the trade unions of all Balkan States is the most necessary condition of success of the proletarian struggle. Therefore, the most urgent task of the adherents of the RILU in the Balkan States is the creation of the possibility for such action, for which purpose the trade unions of the Balkan States should form a United Council of Action.
42. In the Scandinavian countries the number of the adherents of the RILU grows unceasingly, and this growth would be still more rapid if there were no hesitations on the part of the Norwegian unions in their attitude towards the RILU. These hesitations are kept up by the Press of the Amsterdam International and its adherents in Norway, threatening that should the affiliation to the RILU take place, the International Industrial Secretariat would expel the corresponding
Norwegian unions. The Amsterdamers are trying by these demagogic threats to frighten the adherents of the RILU, who have not once declared that they wish to remain within the Industrial Secretariat. The revolutionary elements of the Norwegian trade union movement should strive to attain the final affiliation to the RILU without breaking their connections with the National Scandinavian Federations, and with theInternational Industrial Federations affiliated with the Amsterdam International.
43. In view of the fact that the center of gravity of world politics has been transferred to the shores of the Pacific, the creation of revolutionary trade unions and their connections with the RILU in the countries lying near the Pacific, is becoming of particular importance. The most important work in this direction should be carried out by the revolutionary unions of the imperialist countries, which should establish close and indissoluble connections with the trade unions of
the colonial countries for joint work against the oppression and exploitation of the backward and weak
peoples.
IX.
International Industrial
Trade Union Federations.
44. The International Industrial Secretariats affiliated with the Amsterdam International keep on systematically
to expel the revolutionary trade unions in general, and the Russian unions in particular. Despite the continuous declaration of the revolutionary trade unions-despite their wish to join the International Industrial Secretariat --the Amsterdam International, carrying on its policy of disruption, systematically refuses admission of the revolutionary trade unions to the International Federations. Thus the revolutionary trade unions are faced with the practical problems of the struggle against expulsion and disruption, and for the formation of united International Industrial Trade Union Federations.
45. The International Industrial Propaganda Committees, formed upon the decision of the First International Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions, have done an enormous amount of work in consolidating and rallying the revolutionary forces. Their aim has been to carry on propaganda and agitation, to establish connections among the revolutionary unions, and to strengthen these connections upon the basis of a united practical program of action. In some trades, such as the building, woodworking, transport, mining, metal and leather, the work has greatly progressed, and the Propaganda Committee has succeeded in rallying upon a general platform, a considerable
number of unions, partly in the Amsterdam Secretariats, and partly remaining outside the Secretariats.
46. In order to rally, on an international scale, the disintegrated revolutionary forces, the unions expelled by the Amsterdamers for their revolutionary tendencies and not admitted to the Amsterdam organizations, or which are outside any organization, should unify round the International Propaganda Committees. These Propaganda Committees should create International Federations of all above-mentioned organizations. The Second Congress of the RILU, confirming the decision of the First Congress, considers it necessary that the Propaganda Committees, apart from their propaganda work, should also develop their activity in the field of mutual assistance and solidarity, and should carry on an energetic struggle for the reunification of the International trade union movement on the basis of a well-elaborated concrete program of action. These organizations will become of more importance if they do not restrict their activities to Europe alone, as the Amsterdam Secretariats are doing, but they will extend them to the unions outside the European countries (the near and far East, America, Australia, the Colonial and semi-Colonial countries), thus creating a real International.
47. Taking into consideration the growth of the new imperialist conflicts on the Pacific, the Congress
instructs workers in the countries which lie near the Pacific in particular. With this object in view, special Port Bureaus should be organized, which should link up the revolutionary seamen of the whole world. The adherents of the RILU in England, America, Holland, and France are charged with the task of strengthening the work of rallying the workers to the banner of the RILU.
X.
The Work Among Young Workers and Women.
48. Capitalism exploits in the first place the young workers and the women as the weakest part of the working class, and begins every attack upon the material position of the adult from the deterioration of the position of the women and the young workers. In view of this the adherents of the RILU should strengthen the economic program, adopted by the
International of the Young Workers and by the International Women’s Secretariat, and should flght for its realization.
The young workers and the students should be admitted to the trade unions as members with full rights, and they should be educated there as future class-conscious fighters. When taking action, the greatest attention should be paid to the demands of the young workers (sufflcient, wages, six hours’ working day, maintenance for the unemployed, continuation of education, etc.).
The adherents of the RILU should also fight for the full economic equality of women workers with male workers, and for the real protection of the health of women and mothers.
XI.
The Trade Union Press and Literature.
49. The creation of a serious trade union Press and special, literature on the trade union movement is the most urgent task of all organizations affiliated to the RILU. For this purpose the general trade union organizations affiliated to the RILU as well as the largest federations, should have at least one weekly. Small special libraries, containing literature on various questions of the revolutionary trade union movement, which would interest the masses organized in trade
unions, should be formed in each country. The Congress instructs all organizations affiliated with the RILU
to systematically distribute the central organ of the RILU by compulsory subscribing to it.
XII.
Information and Connections.
50. The experience of the past 15 months has proved that the connections between the RILU and the organizations affiliated to it are not sufflciently close. Each organization affiliated to the RILU should regularly inform the central headquarters on the position in their respective countries. Such reports and minutes should be of regular periodical character, and these reports should not only touch upon the immediate work of the organizations affiliated to the RILU, but upon all questions which appear in the process of the struggle against capitalism and reformism.
51. The Congress instructs the Executive Bureau to publish in the most important European languages, Bulletins for the regular and systematic information of the organizations affiliated to the RILU on the most important questions of the international labor movement, and on the activities of the Executive Bureau. The Congress recommends the organizations affiliated to the RILU, mutually to inform each other. Only such mutual, regular and thorough information, can make possible collective discussion of the most important problems of the international working class movement, and solve them in the right way.
Conclusion.
The Second Congress of the revolutionary trade unions, approving of the program of action formulated by the First Congress, charges all organizations affiliated to the RILU to distribute as widely as possible this program among the working masses, which represents the concentrated experience of the revolutionary labor movement of all countries. The Congress finds it necessary to declare that the revolutionary workers are striving by increasing their work to
consolidate the working class, and to unite the world trade union movement, upon the basis of revolutionary class struggle, for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The Capitalist Offensive
and the United Front.
I.
The Causes of the Offensive of Capital.
1. Capitalism has entered the phase of its historic crisis. Since the end of the war it cannot find a basis for its normal development. The crisis which we witness now in all capitalist countries has very little in common with the temporary crises that were usual before the war. Capitalism has reached a phase when its further development is in direct contradiction to the requirements of the large masses. It has been transformed from being the factor for developing the industries into an obstacle which handicaps their development. It is not in a position any longer to maintain the main element of its industries -- the working class. Despite the partial revival of trade in some countries, the economic crisis in the whole world is yet, though slower than before, intensifying. Capitalism has entered the phase of crisis which is the beginning of its end.
2. The capitalists are striving by all means to save their undermined economic system. If they are unable to succeed in securing an advantageous application of their capital by extending the world market, they will be forced to look for new sources in order to secure their profits. Only one opportunity in this case is left to them — that is to increase the exploitation of the working class. The bourgeoisie has taken the last course — it has taken the offensive against the proletariat.
3. After the liquidation of the war the bourgeoisie was forced to make concessions, because the working class, disappointed by the war, represented then a strong armed force which could at that moment break any opposition of the capitalists to improved conditions of life of the workers. This was augmented by new difficulties which arose in connection with the adaptation of the industries to peace conditions. The insufficiency of orders enabled the capitalists to give in on the question of the eight-hour working day, just as the illusionary revival of trade enabled them to increase wages. The bourgeoisie was disorganized, it needed time to gather its forces in order to disarm the
proletariat. The crisis became more and more intensified and the restoration of the capitalist system met
with insurmountable obstacles. The proletariat was gradually disarmed, the bourgeoisie organized itself, and thus the offensive against the working class became not only possible but inevitable.
II.
The Beginning of the
Offensive and Its Methods.
4. With the change of the economic situation in the spring of 1920, started the offensive of the employers against the workers, which turned into a general offensive of capital. This offensive was mercilessly carried out by the bourgeoisie. It utilized not only the weapons of its own economic power, but also the retaken positions of the State machinery, as well as the special organizations which it formed for this purpose, such as the Fascisti, the Civil Union, the Orgesh, etc. The aim of this offensive was to transfer the burdens of the war and the crisis on to the shoulders of the working class by abolishing the eight-hour working day, by decreasing actual wages, by raising the productivity
of labor, etc.
5. In the countries with a high currency wages were reduced on the ground that this was necessary so as to enable those countries to again have the opportunity of competing in the world market. Not taking into consideration the rise of the cost of living, the capitalists decreased wages from 20 to 40 per cent. The resistance of the workers was met with lockouts, the closing down of factories, the creation of vast armies of the unemployed, who affected the level of wages, and also, by mere force or by applying legal arbitration (Arbitratory Courts, etc.). In countries with a low currency the question of the reduction of actual wages was solved in a more simple manner. Regardless of the reduction of the buying capacity of money, the employers refused to increase wages, aiming at the same time to equalize the prices of the home market with those of the world market. Such a policy enabled them to preserve the capacity to compete in the world market.
6. The abolition of the eight-hour working day in each branch of industry began by the employers exclaiming that this abolition was demanded by the specific features of this or that branch of industry. Under the slogan of restoring the industries the bourgeoisie demanded the removal of all obstacleswhich prevented unrestricted exploitation. In spite of
general unemployment in the industries important to the economic life of the country, as well as in separate industries of important economic significance the policy of compulsory overtime work was introduced
and was strengthened by special agreements (in Czecho-Slovakia, America, and France). In those cases where the employers were sufficiently strong they attempted to fully abolish the eight-hour working day, and demanded the establishment by law of a longer working day for a number of years.
7. A huge growth of misery and mortality amongst the working population, especially of the most exploited and unprotected elements of the working class — the women workers, the young workers and children — the decrease of their working capacity, the impoverishment of the middle class, the dying off of the invalids of labor and the war-are the results of the present situation. Another consequence of low wages in many countries is the deterioration of the technical industrial machinery.
8. The employers lead their attack upon the working class along the line of the least resistance. They try particularly to utilize the weakness and the nonorganization of the socially backward stratum of the working class — the women workers and the young workers -- in order to lower their conditions of labor in the first place, and after, to lower the level of the whole working class. Utilizing the machinery of State compulsion, the capitalists limit the right of the workers’ unions, sometimes dissolve them entirely, or destroy them by violence with the aid of armed bands (in Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Spain). The State employees are either entirely deprived of the right to strike (Germany, Switzerland), or the courts pass sentences upon them for coming out on strike (America), etc.
III.
Class Cooperation Causes the Inability of the Workers to Resist.
9. At the present time the working class is disarmed in the face of the attacking capital. It is not able to organize a well-thought-out defensive campaign and reply to the offensive of capital by a counteroffensive. The causes of this impotency lie in class cooperation and in the agreement which the reformist leaders of the trade unions have concluded with capital. The Amsterdam bureaucracy acts as if the interests of the economic life would be common for the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and in the preservation of which both parties are equally interested. They sacrifice the interests of the proletariat on the altar of saving the capitalist state. They do not desire the class struggle. They are the sworn enemies of the revolution (Black Friday, in England, the appeal of the German Trade Union Federation against the railwaymen’s strike, etc.).
10. The methods applied by the Amsterdamers in their leading of the labor movement” brings to the working class one defeat after the other. They encourage the bourgeoisie to make new attacks upon the working class. Every resistance of the workers against the deterioration of their position contains within itself revolutionary consequences. Consciously evading these consequences, the Amsterdamers become counterrevolutionary and voluntary agents of the bourgeoisie.
11. Every action in the spirit of class cooperation binds the Amsterdamers more and more with their national bourgeoisie. They fight against their own revolutionary proletariat and against foreign competition in union with the bourgeoisie. They make every international action of the proletariat impossible; they handicap the struggle of the workers, directed towards the preservation of the present conditions of labor, and assist the world bourgeoisie to gain ever new victories over the working class.
IV.
Disruption of the Trade Unions to Save Class Cooperation.
12. A continuously growing section of the workers have protested against this policy of class cooperation, and have demanded the organization of counteraction to the offensive of the capitalists. The wider becomes the protest of the revolutionary workers, the more grows the resistance of the workers against the policy of the Amsterdamers and the more grows for the latter the danger of either finding themselves in a position which will compel them to give up the reformist policy, or to lose their power over the working masses and the leadership in the working class organizations.
By this they lose every value for the bourgeoisie.
13. The fact that the Amsterdamers are losing their positions in the bourgeois society causes their great hatred towards the revolutionary workers. Cooperation with the bourgeoisie is more important to them than theunity of the working forces. In the name of preserving this cooperation they sacrifice not only the class interest of the workers, but even destroy their organization. In order to silence the opposition they resort to the expulsion of its constituents. If this does not work, they expel whole local groups not hesitating even to split the trade unions and to destroy the working
class movement. France, Czecho-Slovakia and Germany represent an example of this policy. The trade union bureaucracy does not care that by such tactics thousands of workers become indifferent and that they lose the attainments which they have won by so years of struggle. They consider the disruption of the trade unions as the lesser evil.
V.
Of What Purpose is the United Front?
14. While the Amsterdamers are compelled to split the working class and its organizations in order to be able further to continue their policy, the revolutionary workers, on the contrary, should strive towards the United Front and towards the unification of the workers’ unions. Every disruption of the workers is a victory for the capitalists. In order to turn the present defensive struggle into an offensive the United Front should be created in the first place. There can be no
victory over capital without the United Front.
15. The workers have grasped that with disintegrated forces they are disarmed against capital. They wish the United Front — those who speak to them of the disruption of the trade unions they consider their enemies. Every policy which leads to the disintegration of the trade unions should be rejected. No concessions should be made to the impatient comrades to whom the process of winning over seems too long and who find it necessary to create new organizations. The movement for leaving the trade unions should be combatted in the same resolute manner. The tactics of winning over the trade unions as formulated by the First International Congress of the RILU has been met with sympathy by the class-conscious part of the proletariat, and where it has been correctly applied it has brought
success.
16. If the workers will not succeed in attacking capitalism by the United Front, they will not only suffer new defeat, not only greater misery and slavery will await them, but they will even lose their organizations and remain completely disarmed. In the present situation the task of the revolutionaries is to prove to all the workers and to the office employees and the civil servants that they are prepared at any moment to fight with them jointly in order to break the offensive of capital and so assist the organization of a counteroffensive against the capitalists.
VI.
How is the United Front to be Created?
17. In accordance with the above the Congress advances the following principles:
(a) The adherents of the RILU in their daily struggle put it as their aim to methodically organize and resolutely to carry out the counteraction of the
workers to the offensive of capital.
(b) In their attempt to extend and internally strengthen the revolutionary organizations they should always bear in mind that their chief task is to organize concerted action of all workers’ organizations.
(c) The fundamental condition of the creation of a general trade union United Front is unity of will and a united disciplined activity of all the revolutionary forces. All present differences on separate questions of a national and international character should be left aside. Every rivalry of the revolutionary forces strengthens reformism.
(d) The United Front can only then have a strong basis if it is the result of intensive work among the masses, of the work in the primary nuclei of the organizations and in the workshops, but not as a result of
agreements of the trade union leaders.
(e) The United bloc of the workers’ organizations can only then secure success in the struggle of the proletariat if it is in a position to indicate the concrete aims and methods binding for all adherents. The struggle for the United Front will only then be successful if at the basis of this United Front will lie the Factory Committees.
VII.
The Tasks of the United Front.
18. In order successfully to combat the offensive of capital the following elementary tasks should be carried out:
(a) The struggle against the reduction of wages regardless of the fact whether this reduction is a result of the direct reduction of wages or the increase of the cost of living. A resolute struggle for equal wages for equal work for women.
(b) The struggle for the unconditional preservation of the eight-hour working day, and against the prolongation of the working day in those trades which, owing to their peculiarities, require a shorter working day.
(c) The struggle for the economic demands of the young workers and counteraction to the attempts of the capitalists to utilize the young workers for the reduction of wages of the adult workers.
(d) The struggle for the protection of labor attained by the workers and for the extension of the protection of labor to women workers and to maternity, as well as for the transfer of the burden of social insurance to the State.
(e) Resistance to all attempts of the capitalists upon the rights and the attainments of the working class and upon its authorized representatives and Factory Committees, upon the right to organize especially or the State employees and the workers in the industries vital to the industrial life of the country.
(f) The struggle for securing maintenance of the unemployed during the whole period of unemployment. Equal unemployment benefits for the unemployed men and women.
(g) An organized systematic struggle against all strikebreaking organizations of the bourgeoisie and the States, such as the Technical Aid in Germany, Ku Klux Klan in America, the Civil League in France, and also against all yellow unions (the Christian and nationalistic organizations).
(h) The struggle for arming the proletariat in order to repulse the attacks of the armed bands of the bourgeoisie and to counterattack the organs of Fascism.
(i) A merciless struggle against all military strivings and measures of the bourgeoisie.
(j) A struggle for breaking off the capitalist peace treaties and against all attempts, whatever form they may take, upon Soviet Russia.
(k) A struggle against exploitation and the enslavement of the working masses in the colonies, without
distinction of race.
VIII.
The Struggle Against the Harmful Methods of Policy.
19. The carrying out of these elementary demands during the period of the breakdown of capitalism necessitates entering into the struggle:
(a) Against the conclusion of wage agreements for a long period.
(b) Against the substitution of the trade union struggle by Arbitration Courts and Commissions, with an equal number of both parties.
(c) Against the conclusion of such wage agreements which correspond with the interests of small privileged groups of workers, and which do not pay attention to the interests of the proletariat as a whole and the needs of class solidarity.
(d) Against the methods of the Amsterdamers who are striving, under the pretext of observing discipline, to defeat the desire of the workers to strike by applying bureaucratic strike rules.
(e) Against the artificial localization of strikes applied by the trade union bureaucracy in the interests of preserving the principle of cooperation.
(f) Against the untimely liquidation, out of fear of revolutionary consequences, of actions which promise
to be successful, and which have a tendency to spread further.
(g) Against the resistance to the spreading of real solidarity of the proletariat outside separate trade unions and whole sectional federations, and against the growing indifference of the workers to the struggle of their class comrades.
IX.
Preparation of Action.
20. The successful carrying out of every separate action requires the consolidation of all forces of the proletariat, its trade union and political organizations, and the active participation of the trade unions in the struggle against capitalism as a system. The strike is an important trade union weapon of the struggle. In order to successfully apply this weapon the following is necessary:
(a) A well thought out leadership of all economic actions during which all existing proletarian forcesshould be utilized and the present position and possibilities of success should be taken into consideration.
(b) Vast solidarity, which should be expressed in moral and material support to those in the struggle by the remaining proletariat, from this particular industry up to action on an international scale.
(c) To take into consideration the fact that every strike, particularly a general strike, can be successful only if its aim is well understood by the masses, if it is the expression of the will of the masses, if it is well prepared, and if the leaders of this strike are in constant contact with the masses.
(d) That during a general strike the masses should observe an iron discipline, that the leaders and the masses should well remember that during the general strike the working class is every minute threatened by an armed attack of the bourgeoisie, they should be prepared for it, and they should have all necessary means to repulse such an attack.
(e) To take into consideration that in countries in which there are several trade union headquarters, every action of the workers, particularly in the event of the general strike, is threatened with great danger, if the trade unions will not fight jointly. Therefore, the revolutionary trade union officials should take upon themselves the initiative to create the United Front.
21. Only if the revolutionary workers will observe these main rules during mass actions, will they be in a position to form the United Front and successfully to carry out the defensive struggle against the offensive of capital and prepare for the triumph of the working class over capitalism. RILU and the Comintern.
Taking into consideration:
1. That the object of then RILU is to unify all the revolutionary workers for the joint struggle against capitalism and for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
2. That this aim can be attained only on condition that all the fighters for the social revolution will be permeated with the Communist spirit.
3. That the triumph of Communism is possible only on an international scale, which requires the closest contact and coordination of the activities of the Comintern and the RILU.
4. That there are groups of workers of the revolutionary syndicalist current of thought who are sincerely striving towards the creation of a United Front with the Communists, and who consider that the mutual representation between the Comintern and the RILU established by the First Congress, does not correspond with the traditions of the working class movement of their countries.
5. That the GCTU of France, representing the above view, expresses itself most emphatically for the militant cooperation between the Comintern and the RILU, and for concerted action in all defensive and offensive struggles against capital. The Delegations of the trade unions of Russia, Germany, Italy and Spain, standing on the platform of the urgent necessity of the leadership of the Communist Party in each country, and of the Communist International on an international scale, proposes, nevertheless, to meet half-way the revolutionary workers of France, and to accept the proposal of the GCTU in order to strengthen at this Congress the bloc of all sincerely revolutionary elements of the international trade union movement, who rally under the banner of the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of
the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The High Cast of Living
and Unemployment.
1. Unemployment, the high cost of living, reduction of wages, and deterioration of the standard of living of the working class are the inevitable consequences of every crisis of the capitalist system. They grow and turn into a direct threat, endangering the very existence of the working class, as capitalism is nearing the limits of its developments. And the clearer it becomes that the present economic crisis is the last crisis of the capitalist epoch, the more aggressive becomes the attack of the bourgeoisie which tears away by violence millions of workers from their livings, and which throws the large masses into the abyss of impoverishment and degeneration.
2. The colossal economic crisis has affected the working class in two ways: in countries with a high currency it has caused unprecedented unemployment; in countries with a low currency, chiefly in the defeated countries of Central Europe, the crisis is accompanied by a disastrous fall of the subsistence minimum of the workers doomed to semi-starvation. In the first case, as well as in the second, the results are equally ruinous for the proletariat
3. The bourgeoisie is not any longer in a position to secure the subsistence minimum for the worker, even as the object of its exploitation. But it intensively struggles for its further existence. It has mobilized all the forces of the old system to defend the holy foundations of the bankrupt system of private property. The reformist leaders of the trade unions stand on the platform of restoring the capitalist industries. They cannot, and do not wish, and will not carry on an active struggle for the liquidation of unemployment, or even for relieving the misery which it causes. They play the last role in the counterrevolutionary army. They take up the fatalist view point of the bourgeois learned men, who consider the present crisis as “normal” in the history of capitalism, and which can be overcome by intensifying the industrial energy of the proletariat. Thus the bourgeoisie, and together with it the reformist lackeys, are trying to transfer the burden of the economic consequences of the “great” war of the bourgeoisie upon the shoulders of the proletariat.
4. All this proves that every struggle for the improvement of the position of the working class and the unemployed at the present phase of the development of capitalism must inevitably turn into the revolutionary struggle against the very system of capitalism. Unemployment can be liquidated only with the liquidation of the capitalist system; and it is just the latter that the Amsterdamers strongly oppose. They advance miserable government alms against unemployment,
and they fight by the old trade union methods against the horrible high cost of living, advancing the theory of the sliding scale, etc. They consciously deceive the working masses, weakening their class consciousness, and drawing them away from the active struggle.
5. The revolutionary trade unions of all countries should make clear to the large masses the essence of the methods of the bourgeoisie and its henchmen, the Amsterdamers, and should unify these masses under the watchword of aconcrete struggle. These watchwords are as follows:
(a) The restoration of solidarity between the employed and the unemployed; this will be possible if the workers will take action for absorbing all unemployed in the industries and for reopening the factories that have been closed down.
(b) The struggle for unemployment benefits should be carried on under the watchword of “The right to exist” The attempt to decrease the State benefits should be opposed by advancing the demand of increasing these benefits to the normal level of wages. The capitalist State and the exploiting classes should shoulder the burden of maintenance of the unemployed.
(c) The Red Trade Unions should work in full accord with the “Unemployed Committees” in those countries where such exist. Their tasks in the old Amsterdam Unions should be the organization of groups of unemployed, together with which they should fight against the trade union bureaucracy, forcing it to take resolute action for the improvement of the position of the unemployed.
(d) The organizations of the unemployed should have an equal vote in the trade unions and other workers’ organizations. Not a single member of a trade union who loses his work should be expelled from his organization because of his inability to pay his membership fees.
(e) In the question of the high cost of living, the struggle of the revolutionary trade unions should be carried on under the watchword of “Control over articles of primary necessity,” “Workers’ control over regulation of prices and distribution,” “Down with the currency speculative Baccanalia.”
(g) The Second Congress of the RILU calls upon the workers of all countries to close up their proletarian
ranks and unite for the overthrow, by mutual efforts, of the capitalist system, which is rotten to the core. This is the only method which can liquidate the very question of unemployment and the high cost of living.
The Struggle Against Imperialism and Militarism.
At the present time it may seem that capitalism in some countries has improved its economic position, particularly in America, England and France. But, actually, it is moving towards its breakdown. Inevitable bankruptcy is in, store for it.
In all countries the balance of the national industries and the social life is lost; life is becoming intolerable for the workers, owing to the financial instability and the greedy appetites of the speculants, who are fleecing the workers. The class contradictions, are intensifying as the insolence of the imperialists is increasing.
The differences of the Entente Powers over the terms of the Versailles Treaty are growing, though they have together signed this Treaty; every. Power is pursuing its own imperialistic policy, which creates precedents for new wars. The Grecian-Turkish war is but a result of this policy.
The oppression of the colonial peoples continues, and is growing to an extent that it causes upheavals, which are being suppressed in the most ruthless manner. In Egypt, India, Ireland, Morocco, Tunis, Transvaal, unceasing revolutionary uprisings are taking place, which prove how great are the strivings of these masses towards emancipation.
Militarism crops up everywhere, increases and causes further extension of armaments. A new world slaughter is being prepared on the shores of the Pacific, on which the imperialists are ready to stake everything. Having tried all methods by arms to defeat Russia, which is the expression of the world proletarian revolution, and having experienced defeat in this armed struggle, the impatient States are transferring their struggle to the economic field. At the present times they are negotiating with the Proletarian States. The bourgeois diplomats are intriguing and skillfully manoeuvering as, forinstance, at the Lausanne Conference. Mussolini, the most authoritative representative of the world reaction and leader of the Fascisti, is attempting, and insists, that Russia should be admitted to the Conference with equal right as other States.
The reaction against the working class is raging everywhere, though in a different degree. The attainments of the working class are in great peril. The right to strike and the freedom of the Unions are being challenged. The eight-hour working day is being abolished, wages are being reduced, regardless of the high cost of living and the rise in prices, and regardless of the losses caused by the instability of wages. The most ruthless repressions are applied to the revolutionaries whom reaction is killing and throwing in to jails. The Civic Leagues and the Fascisti bands are breaking strikes, plundering and burning down the buildings of the workers’ organizations, and are shooting the workers.
The revolutionary proletariat should keep on the watch more than ever, should be organized and disciplined.
At the present moment two forces are opposed to each other in the whole world: Reaction, supported by the White Guard Dictatorship (Fascism) and Communism, which represents the world revolution and is supported by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The aim of the revolutionary workers is to make clear to all workers that their first duty is to support Proletarian Russia, which embodies the revolutionary theory and revolutionary actions, because the economic development of the proletarian state weakens the world capitalism.
The revolutionaries should expose the bourgeois pacifists and social patriots who deceive the masses by their anti-militarist and platonic declarations, not being in reality in a position to handicap the imperialistic war in which they will take the most active part as soon as it is declared. They should also expose the impotency of the League of Nations, which is but an association of the Entente imperialists, a Union of the conquerors against the conquered and which, neither by its composition nor by its spirit, can give peace to the nations.
The revolutionaries should strengthen their class organizations in order to increase their influence upon the working masses, and, thus increase their militancy. It is necessary to submit to strict and rational discipline, in order to pit against capitalism the United Front, capable of defending the proletariat from the violent attempts of the capitalists and their henchmen. In order to hamper the militarist propaganda and to remove the threat of the imperialist war, it is necessary to prepare the working class opinion by means of meetings, leaflets, placards, and the periodical press, in order to cause a unanimous mood against the bourgeois militarists.
Propaganda and organization groups should be formed in the army and in the capitalist militant organizations or institutions.
In case the imperialists send the workers to a new slaughter, the revolutionaries should direct all their efforts so that the workers in the countries interested should reply by united efforts to the declaration of war, by a general strike and revolution.
Finally, in order to secure the attainments of the proletarian revolution, the revolutionaries should widely advocate the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat, because capitalism can be completely overthrown only by the organized efforts of the working class.
The Trade Unions and the
Cooperative Movement.
The revolutionary trade unions
in their relation to the workers’ cooperative movement
pursue the following
aims:
1. To assist the class self-definition of the working class cooperative movement.
2. To draw the working class cooperative movement and the masses which it organizes into the general struggle of the politically and trade union organized proletariat for its daily interests and for its final aim the reconstruction of the commonwealth upon a Communist basis.
3. To utilize the cooperative machinery and the masses which it unites in the struggle against high prices (the movement for Workers’ Control).
4. For this purpose to assist the unification within the cooperatives of all revolutionary elements standing on the platform of the class struggle. In connection with this the revolutionary trade unions should so strive that:
1. All members of the trade unions should join the corresponding workers’ cooperatives.
2. The elements organized in trade unions should strive within the cooperatives that all members of the
workers’ cooperatives should belong to the corresponding unions.
3. The unions should take a most active part in all campaigns of the working class cooperative movement.
Reports on cooperative work should be submitted to all trade union congresses and the representatives of the trade unions should take a most active part in the congresses of the cooperatives.
4. The members of the cooperatives organized in the trade unions should combat by propaganda “the
independence” and “the neutrality”, pitting against them the principle of unity of the working class movement and
the necessity of the closest consolidation and the mutual, assistance of all elements in the class struggle of Labor
against Capital.
5. In all countries where the struggle is carried on for the restoration of the United Front of the workers against the offensive of capital, the working class cooperative movement should, in an organized manner, be attracted to this struggle, being one of the factors of the working class movement.
6. The working class cooperative movement should participate in all international and national actions of the working class against war imperialism, in the struggle for higher wages, for the eight-hour working day, against white terror and in support of Soviet Russia.
7. The workers’ cooperatives should be drawn into the work of creating militant strike funds, the necessary financial means for the revolutionary proletarian press, the relief work for the victims of the white terror, imprisoned victims of lockouts, etc.
8. Contact should be fully secured between the revolutionary trade union movement and the revolutionary,
cooperative movement by means of mutual representation and mutual support on a national and international scale.
9. The revolutionary trade unions, together with the Communist groups, should support the struggle of the revolutionary elements within the cooperatives for the purpose of winning over the majority of the masses and the organs which are leading them.
10. The revolutionary trade unions should carry on a struggle through their members within the cooperatives
against the cooperative bureaucracy and for carrying out the proletarian democratism in the daily practice of the workers’ cooperatives.
11. The trade union should support the cause of the cooperative structure by giving to it their native workers, by investing their funds in the cooperative banks and also by participating in the organizational and social control life of the cooperatives.
12. The conditions of the office employees and the workers engaged in the concerns and in the offices of the cooperatives should be under special control of the trade union organs.
Resolution
on the
Industrial Cooperative Associations
of the Trade Unions Among the Workers. (The Building Guilds, etc.)
1. The revolutionary Trade Unions should carry on a determined struggle against the substitute for the very idea of socialization which is one of the most important links in the general struggle of the working class for the seizure of the political and economic power. The movement of cooperative industrial associations (the Building Guilds of the Unions, etc.) which are aiming, in the opinion of the reformist leaders of the Unions, peacefully and gradually, by means of cooperative self-activity (by collecting pecuniary means for socialization), to partially waive the question of socialization
within the limits of the capitalist system, in reality however creates, at its best, harmful illusions.
2. Repudiating every economic cooperation with the bourgeoisie, exposing the harm of this cooperation to the working class, the revolutionary Trade Unions should combat the tendency of drawing away the Unions as militant organs of the proletariat from the direct and real struggle for socialization, the more so that the real results of the above-mentioned movement (the Building Guilds, etc.), within the capitalist system are absolutely and relatively not essential.
3. As experience proves the reformists at their best are only in a position at the expense of the material means and forces of the militant trade union organs to set up a number of small limited companies, which are being drowned in the .general system of the capitalist economic life and which are only nests of petit bourgeois competition and egoism. Observing that the international bourgeoisie shows exclusive interests towards the movement (the
attraction of the German and French reformist unions to the restoration of the devastated districts in France) and that, in this movement the bankruptcy of reformism is graphically demonstrated and the illusion is testified to relieve the position of the working class by such means in the period of the breakdown of capitalism, the revolutionary trade unions consider it as their chief aim to lend the struggle of the working class for the transfer of all means of production of the working class, which only can be the result of the daily attraction of the masses to the mass movement both in their daily interests and their final aims.
The Commercial Cooperative Activity of the Trade Unions.
1. The congress considers it harmful and irrational from the viewpoint of the revolutionary trade union movement to make in any way the work of the trade unions complex by placing upon it the tasks of the consumer’s cooperative movement, as, for instance, the present case in Germany and in a number of other countries.
2. The trade unions should do their utmost in supporting and utilizing the cooperative working class movement, but not in directly taking over its economic functions, which would draw away the mass militant organizations from their tasks and struggles. The more is this tendency inadmissable in the revolutionary trade unions in view of past experience, especially in Germany, where the direct economic activity of the national trade union federation brought about the subsidizing of the unions by the bourgeois state, which results in the increased dependence of the reformist trade unions on the bourgeoisie.
The Trade Union Movement in
Colonial and Semi-Colonial Countries.
1. Colonies and semi-colonial countries are an integral part of the present imperialist countries whose
existence as such is impossible without them.
(a) Colonies are a source of direct State income, drawn out by the Metropolis by the pressure of taxes and a system of government monopolies.
(b) The colonies supply armies, which together with the “national” armies, make possible the rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie, both in the colonies and outside of them (England in India, Persia, Mesopotamia, France in Africa and in Germany).
(c) The colonies are large markets for the cheap manufactures of the Metropolis.
(d) The colonies are a field for investment (in the railroads, ports, electrical stations tramways, colonial
banks).
(e) Finally, the colonies are a source of raw materials and fuel for the metropolitan industries. The last factor is of growing importance now, because the struggle for raw materials is one of the principal factors, deciding the policies of the imperialist States.
2. The plundering of the colonies and semi-colonies is carried out by political and economic measures. Politically, by means of concentrating the entire military, legislative and administrative power, in the hands of the government agents and of a small clique of large landowners and capitalists, chiefly from among the invaded state. Economically, by means of retarding the industrial development of the colonies: through legislative, administrative customs, tariffs, and other measures. Not only did these measures prevent the development of native industry, but very often led to the
retrogression of the previously existing industries of the country colonies which had been manufacturing and exporting goods have consciously and systematically turned into purely agricultural countries, exporting only raw materials and consuming manufactures of the Metropolis (India). For the purpose of greater exploitation the imperialistic bourgeoisie consciously keeps the great toiling masses of the colonies in ignorance, robbing them not only economically, but also intellectually, and depriving them of the opportunities of social and cultural development.
3. While enriching: the bourgeoisie, the colonies have had a negative effect upon the labor movement of the Metropolis. Work in the colonies is paid for incomparably worse than in the Metropolis. Owing to the lack of native industries, owing to the breakdown of the artisan industries unable to compete with the cheap manufactures imported from the Metropolis, owing to the impoverishment and decrease in the holdings of the peasantry in consequence of the policies of the Metropolis, the colonies are becoming centers of cheap labor, ready, in view of the general low
standard of living and the undeveloped trade union organizations themselves, to work under any conditions and for pay insufficient to sustain life. This enables the capitalists to make tremendous profits in the colonies, not only profits, but super-profits. At a time of prosperity in the Metropolis, where the demand for labor, especially for highly skilled labor, is great, the capitalists of the Metropolis are able to share part of the super-profits made in the colonies with the labor aristocracy of their country, making them superior to the great masses poorly paid, splitting and disorganizing the labor movement of the Metropolis, and turning a certain part of the working class into the willing servants of the imperialist machine. This is responsible to a certain degree for the reformist tendencies of the labor aristocracy of Europe and America. And it is not, of course, by accident that reformism has gripped the upper layer of the working
class of these countries in whose economic life the superprofits, derived from the colonies, play an important part (America, formerly Germany, Holland, etc.).
Even greater was the demoralization of the white worker (as well as the Japanese in Korea) in the colonies:
the difference in wages and in the entire standard of living on the one hand, the frequent strike breaking activities of the white workers during strikes of the native workers, as well as their general leaning towards capitalists on the other hand, and rivalry of the white and native workers hampering the development of class solidarity.
4. The war has made considerable changes in the economic and political position of the colonies and semi-colonies. The sharp drop in imports during the war, the great dependence upon the colonies in a financial and military sense (England, France), the keen rivalry between the imperialistic states, gave the native capital the opportunity to free itself from under the imperialist guardianship of the metropolis, and resulted in the rapid industrialization of the colonies and semicolonies (India, China, Egypt), and in the rise of a numerous industrial native proletariat employed in concerns of European and American type, and concentrated in large masses in great industrial centers. This newly born proletariat at once gave great breadth to the movement which came into being at the end of the war and which has shaken the entire East.
5. The young labor movement of the colonies has its peculiarities:
(a) The number of organized workers, while large in absolute figures, is small in proportion to the entire proletariat, embracing only an insignificant minority.
(b) In addition to the establishment of trade union organizations which have recently come into being, there sprung into being a number of organizations of a temporary nature arising suddenly during a strike and vanishing soon after.
(c) The trade union organizations are often permeated with the artisan spirit, with sectionalism, provincialism,
local patriotism (China), and when there are no strikes have very little class consciousness.
(d) Under the conditions of the anti-imperialistic, nationalistic movement, which has spread to all countries of the East, the young labor movement of the colonies and semi-colonies easily becomes influenced by the bourgeoisie and its leaders who are striving to utilize the mass movement of the workers in their interests; the trade unions are often headed by bourgeois public workers, and even by capitalists (China, India).
These peculiarities are due, on the one hand, to the fact that the rapid growth of the native industries took place under conditions of a patriarchal feudal system where the usurious commercial capital was prevailing, characteristic under all differences of structures, of all the colonial and semi-colonial states; and on the other hand, to the yoke of imperialism which gave the bourgeois national movement an easy opportunity of utilizing the racial, caste, and national peculiarities, traditions and prejudices of the unconscious proletariat, overwhelmed by the peasantry. The bourgeoisie all the time deceived the masses by the slogan of: “The fight for independence,” betraying the workers all the time
and directing the class movement of the toilers into the channels of the nationalistic, democratic, emancipation
movement against the rule of the invaders.
6. The problems of the trade union movement in the colonies and semi-colonies are in their main features everywhere the same, namely: (a) To create industrial unions based upon the principle of class struggle which should act quite independently of the bourgeoisie, aiming to defend the class interests of the proletariat, for which purpose it will be necessary to carry on in the majority of countries (not excluding Turkey), a constant struggle for the legalization of the
unions, for the right of organization, etc.
(b) To carry on a systematic and persistent
struggle for the equalization of the conditions of labor
of the native workers in wages, working hours, and in general conditions with those of the white workers emigrated from the metropolis.
(c) To carry along with it a struggle against the racial, national enmity between the white and native workers, which is very advantageous to the capitalists and is mainly responsible for the slow development of the labor movement in the colonies and semi-colonies. The native capital of the newest formation is particularly interested in maintaining and deepening the hostility which it utilizes in two directions: (1) to split the labor movement itself, and (2) to draw the great
masses into the struggle for national freedom advantageous to the interests of the native bourgeoisie.
(d) While watchfully guarding its class interests, the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies should at the same time participate directly in the entire antiimperialist movement, which in the colonies and semicolonies assumes, inevitably, a quite national emancipation character, for without overthrowing the rule of the imperialists who are anxious to derive super-profits from the colonies, the working class of these countries cannot attain a real improvement in their conditions of labor.
But while participating in the general national emancipation struggle, the workers should take a foremost
and independent position in the antimilitarist front, exposing the hypocrisy, the halfheartedness of the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie and their parties (No Min Dun in China, Ghandian in India, Kemalism in Turkey), and insufficiencies of their agrarian program. The proletariat of the colonies should strive to seize the leadership of the peasantry and the agrarianrevolution, without which the liberation of the colonies and semi-colonies is unthinkable.
(e) The special task of the trade union movement of the colonies and semi-colonies is the organization of the tremendous mass of the agricultural laborers, who make up in some Eastern countries (Korea, Persia, Turkey) a very considerable part of the population, and also the numerous artisans, who are beginning to leave the patriarchal craft system and are being drawn into the struggle of the proletariat.
7. These problems are of the utmost importance, not only to the colonies, but to the labor movement of the entire world, and the RILU should come to the aid of the young trade union movement of the colonies and semi-colonies in the following way:
(a) The revolutionary national federation and the minorities of the countries which possess colonies (England, France, America, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Japan, etc.) affiliated to the RILU, should organize special bodies to keep up connections with the trade union movement of these colonies. Japan, which is very close to its colonies and semi-colonies (Korea, China, etc.), must particularly play an important part in this work. The grade of development of the labor movement in these countries will solve the entire problem of the Pacific.
(b) In order to work out a concrete program of action for each country and colony in accordance with the actual situation, the Second Congress of the RILU decides to call simultaneously with the next Congress of the RILU as far as possible a large conference of the revolutionary trade union organizations in the colonies and the semi-colonies of the whole world Preparations for such a conference should begin immediately.
(c) In order to establish before the convocation of this conference, the best relations between the revolutionary
trade union movement of the West and the East on the one hand, and the countries of the East between themselves on the other hand, a number of Port Bureaux should be established in the most important ports. The choice of the particular port and the formulation of the immediate activities of this Port Bureau should be left to the special conference of the transport workers in which the RILU is to participate.
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