Index
Contents: This Issue
Search CHNN
CHNN Home
'Moscow' or 'Amsterdam'?
The Red International of Labour Unions, 1920/21-1937
This thesis (in German) was accepted at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz in the spring of 1999 in partial fulfilment of the 'habilitation' procedures (a 'second thesis' according to German academic customs).
The Red International of Labour Unions (RILU or, in the Russian abbreviation, Profintern) was founded in Moscow in 1921 shortly after the Comintern's Third Congress and was dissolved sixteen years later. In comparison with studies on the Comintern its history has been rather neglected. In the former Soviet and East European historiography several general histories were published in the 1970s and 80s largely due to the fact that the Profintern archive was slightly more accessible than that of the Comintern. [1] However, these studies were typical products of late-Stalinist historiography with all its limitations, omissions, etc. [2]. In Western labour / socialist his- toriography the RILU has always stood in the shadow of its parent organisation. Apart from a few notable exceptions, [3] its study has been dealt with in the context of several national trade union and CP histories where, for a certain period, communist trade unionism won a mass base. In such cases, for example, France, Czechoslovakia and a series of 'colonial and semi-colonial' countries, the question of the RILU was of undeniable importance. However, in these studies the broad assessment has been that: 'The fate of the Profintern will never be more than a footnote in the history of the international labour movement - it never amounted to much (....)' [4]
In contrast, E.H. Carr indirectly put forward a counter-position when he argued that the RILU 'was in the nineteen-twenties by far the most powerful and important of the auxiliary organizations which gravitated around the Comintern. It was, indeed, the only one which could claim independence, and was more than a mere subsidiary organ.' He stressed 'the large organization of the Profintern, and its extensive representation abroad, in which it far surpassed any other of the [Comintern's] auxiliaries'. [5] In fact, in his multi-volume History of Soviet Russia, Carr presents the best description of the RILU's history until the 'turn' of 1928-29, where his study ends, which was possible without access to the Soviet archives.
I wholly subscribe to Carr's appreciation. In fact, I argue that the formation of many CPs cannot be explained without reconstructing the way in which they built a mass base in the organised working class, ie, in the trade union movement (or, indeed, the way in which they failed to build such a base). Similarly, the biographies of many party leaders cannot be satisfactorily traced without taking into account the respective individual's work inside the RILU's structures. Harry Pollitt, William Z. Foster or, of lesser importance, George Hardy, or for a shorter period of time Alfred Rosmer and J. T. Murphy, are but a few such examples. There is, however, a further aspect which until now has been largely neglected. That is, the RILU was the original meeting point for syndicalists and Bolsheviks. As such, the contribution of syndicalism as the second root of international communism alongside that of the pre-1914 international social democratic Left has not been fully recognised in the literature. Undeniable for the Comintern in general it was not that important, but it had a decisive influence on some CPs. And importantly, it was through the RILU and not the Comintern that the syndicalists [6] were attracted to and influenced communism.
The general underestimation of the contribution of syndicalism seems to me to be a rather ironic echo of Stalinism. One of the effects of Stalinism's re-writing of communism's history since the 1930s has been to downplay the role of syndicalism. Its emphasis of anti-bureaucratism and anti-parliamentarism was scarcely compatible with Popular Frontism.
However, this must not lead to underestimating the role of the RILU in international trade unionism, dominated at that time by social democracy. International trade union organisations had come into being even before World War One. There were the 'vertical federations' based on a single craft or industry (the so-called International Trade Secretariats (ITS) and the 'horizontal federation' which united national trade union centres in the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). Dominated by German social democracy, the IFTU had also attracted elements of the 'pure' British trade unionists and a part of the syndicalist movement. (Already before 1914 the syndicalists were split on an international scale between those who were willing to work in broad international organisations — in the main these constituted the most influential unions such as the French — and those who opposed this and advocated a strategy of 'dual unionism'. However, these were unable to construct an organisational alternative to the major trade union internationals.) [7]
While in the first chapter I give a short overview of the different workers' internationals and of how the separation of political and trade union internationals gave rise to the IFTU before World War One, it is in Chapter Two that I explore the circumstances which led to the founding of the RILU. The Bolsheviks had captured the majority of the Russian trade union federation in early 1918 and made vague proclamations for a revolutionary trade union international. Obviously, though, at the time their main preoccupations lay elsewhere. Besides, the IFTU had become inactive after 1914 (or rather, it was used by both warring camps to justify their conduct in the military conflict). With the end of the war, however, the IFTU was reorganised and became known as the Amsterdam International because of the location of its headquarters. An attempt on the part of the Bolsheviks to send a delegation to its first conference failed due to the Allied blockade. However, with the IFTU supporting the formation of the League of Nations, which in turn granted the IFTU a place in its newly-founded International Labour Organisation, there appeared to be no common political basis upon which the Russians could join. Thus, denouncing the IFTU, the Russians proclaimed the need for the IFTU to be superseded by a revolutionary international. It did not appear contradictory to the Bolsheviks that at the same time in the Comintern they were waging a determined struggle against an 'ultra-leftist' abandonment of those same mass trade unions which, through their national trade unions federations, constituted the member organisations of the IFTU. This contradiction could only be explained with reference to the Bolsheviks' expectation that the victory of the world revolution was only a matter of time and was indeed imminent. This would then have 'resolved' the question of the IFTU. At this 1919-20 conjuncture, nearly all syndicalist organisations also felt attracted to the Bolsheviks, seeing in the 'soviets' only another form of the revolutionary 'syndicat'.
It was against this background that with victory in the Civil War and the lifting of the blockade in the spring/summer of 1920 various international delegations visited Russia and entered into negotiations which led to the formation of the 'International Trade Union Council'. The Bolsheviks initially developed this body together with British (left-wing TUC leaders) and Italian delegates, who intended to form a left-wing current inside the IFTU. In addition, the presence of many syndicalists in Moscow who openly opposed the IFTU presented the Bolsheviks with an opportunity to line them up against the IFTU reformists. However, while these syndicalists continued to support the revolution they nevertheless felt somewhat reluctant to give the Bolsheviks their complete, unquestioned support because of the latter's insistence on forming political parties. But having found common ground with the Bolsheviks in the field of international trade union co-operation, the syndicalists thus demanded from them formal independence for the Council against the Russians' initial insistence on the need for the Council to join the Comintern as some type of subdivision. During the Councils' early days its main task was the preparation of a representative world congress of revolutionary trade unions. It was during these negotiations that Lozovsky, nominally a 'second-string' trade union leader with some 'anti-party' errors in his past, came to prominence due to his pre-war international experience (and language skills), while Tomsky, the principal Bolshevik trade union leader, had to concentrate on his work in the Russian trade union leadership.
The founding congress of the RILU held in the summer of 1921 is subjected to an in-depth analysis in Chapter Three. The Congress was made up by delegates representing, first, all the different syndicalist and semi-syndicalist currents and, second, the trade union factions of the CPs. In preparation for the congress the communists tried to win over whole sections of the reformist unions but were unsuccessful. Amsterdam had answered with an offensive of its own using the issue of trade union discipline — you cannot belong to two internationals at the same time. In this way, confrontation simply ran along the lines of the slogan 'Moscow or Amsterdam?' and simply led to a wave of expulsions. The communists were only able to bring the party trade union factions into the new international organisation. The existing trade union centres such as the TUC, the German ADGB, the French CGT, etc. remained intact and continued to act as the backbone for the Amsterdam International. With this failed approach to reformist unions, relations with syndicalists dominated discussions. There were also heated discussions about the mandates of delegates which led to incriminations and much manipulation. The Bolsheviks succeeded in winning over a part of the syndicalist movement (including Rosmer from France and Nin and Maurín from Spain), thereby jointly dominating the new international. Although, then, the RILU was formally constituted, the question of the fate of the imprisoned Russian anarchists did nearly plunge the congress into chaos. Indeed, a section of the syndicalist movement, mainly those from 'dual unionist' groups who were heavily influenced by anarchism drew their conclusions and founded a counter-international a year later.
The new international immediately had to confront the questions of its narrow organisational base, the contradiction of claiming to be an independent organisation, and having a sizeable proportion of its members inside its principal competitor in the labour movement. Only in France and Czechoslovakia were RILU trade union federations able to be formed when splits were taking place in organisations belonging to Amsterdam. This situation led to the turn to united front tactics, adopted in tandem with the Comintern at the end of 1921. The outcome of this is dealt with in Chapter Four together with the RILU's organisational progress up to the Second Congress at the end of 1922. [8]
The year 1922 witnessed a series of failed initiatives. Aided by the RILU's earlier aggressive propaganda war against the 'yellow traitors', Amsterdam demonstrated stubborn resistance to having anything to do with the RILU. The IFTU, denying the RILU as a 'dual international' its right to exist, presumptuously invited the Russians to join since it could be sure that this offer would be rejected out of hand by the Bolsheviks. The RILU, though, did develop a more subtle attitude towards the International Trade Secretariats which, though also tied to social democracy, stood slightly to the Left of Amsterdam and certainly were regarded as being more closely linked to their worker base. (It was for this reason that the Russian unions tried to enter the ITSs. This move was intended as a first step which would open the doors to other RILU unions. [9]) In an attempt to influence these ITSs and the different trades/professions in general, special organisations — the so-called International Propaganda Committees (IPC) — were created by the RILU. However, only in a few cases, most notably among transport workers, were these committees really active.
A real chance for a united front then suddenly seemed to appear on the back of the international crisis which arose after the French army occupied the Ruhr valley in early 1923. This crisis also led to a crack in the Amsterdam leadership. Its secretary, Edo Fimmen, who had earlier led the assault on the communists, changed his position and supported reaching an understanding with the Russians, a position which eventually cost him his job. [10] He did, though, keep his second post as secretary of the transport workers' international. Ultimately, though, all attempts at building a united front came to nothing with the failure of the planned 'German October', which itself also conditioned the struggle inside the Bolshevik leadership.
What had begun with Fimmen then crystallised as a tendency inside the IFTU with the TUC acting as the standard-bearer. They sought to invite the Soviet trade unions (thereby also hoping to resolve the fate of the RILU which without the Russians would have lost its principal base). There was a tendency within the Russian leadership, mainly around Tomsky, who wanted to accept the proposals while others openly opposed it. (All this was closely related to the faction struggle in the Russian CP.) While the Russian trade unions went on to set up the 'Anglo-Russian Committee' with the TUC, the RILU leadership around Lozovsky openly struggled for the international's survival, but was not able to attack directly the Russian trade unions. For a while, it seemed that the RILU had found a new raison d'ętre in terms of winning influence in the emerging trade union movement in the colonial countries, particularly in China, a task which traditionally Amsterdam had ignored. The RILU even built an 'auxiliary' in the form of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat which was based in China from 1927. However, this perspective received a decisive set-back with the defeat of the revolution in China in the summer of 1927.
The RILU survived mainly because of the collapse of the Anglo-Russian Committee and the 'left' turn of the Comintern which led to the adoption of the 'dual unionism' perspective (i.e., taking a hostile stand towards the reformist unions which were declared to be 'social-fascist'). While this turn was later justified in terms of being a consequence of the world depression, in fact the turn had already begun a year earlier with the Fourth Congress of the RILU in March-April 1928. The creation of revolutionary trade unions around the world inflated the RILU on paper. However, even with this apparent immediate advance, not all sections followed the new line whole-heartedly. This, for example, was the case in Britain. After serious set-backs there were also the typical self-criticisms which pointed out the need not to neglect work inside the reformist unions. These criticisms more often than not, though, remained on paper. Even additional 'sub-internationals' were created. In 1929 a Latin American federation was set up, while in 1930 an International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers and an International of Sea and Harbour Workers were formed. While, undeniably, many communist trade unionists led heroic struggles against the consequences of the economic crisis, their politics as popularised around the world by the RILU were ultra-sectarian and self-defeating. Communist trade union influence underwent a dramatic drop as the 'revolutionary unions' were essentially nothing more than a second edition of the local CP. The years 1928 to 1933, then, which also witnessed the expulsion of different opposition currents of Trotskyists and Right Oppositionists (this corresponding to the state of affairs inside the Comintern) are therefore discussed in rather less detail.
The turn to the Popular Front from 1934 had quite a contradictory outcome for the RILU. While it led to an upturn in communist trade union influence all over the world, the RILU itself became an obstacle for the wider strategic considerations of the Soviet and Comintern leadership which was then seeking to reach some sort of understanding with social democracy. The RILU leadership tried in vain to be a player in these international manoeuvres, but was simply considered to be superfluous by Dimitrov (who seems to have negotiated this with Stalin in 1936). At the heart of their considerations now stood a concern to get the Russian trade unions into the IFTU. After the RILU had already lost most of its member federations outside the Soviet Union, in the spring/summer of 1936 its own apparatus was 'demobilised', with the remaining offices being wound up in 1937. (This early dismantling of the RILU's structures also meant that it was only lightly affected by the mass arrests which took place in 1937 and which dealt such a serious blow to the Comintern apparatus.) Typically, the dissolution of the RILU (and, consequently, of its internal 'auxiliaries') was decided upon by the Comintern leadership in outright violation of the RILU's rules. This whole organisational development was also an expression of the deep change which had taken place in communist trade union work since the early 1920s. The communists had begun by basing themselves on the rank and file and had followed a near syndicalist approach in aiming to revolutionise the unions and destroy the bureaucracy. By the mid-1930s, however militant the rhetoric and, in part, the deeds, at the centre of the RILU's strategic deliberations stood its concern to enter the leadership bodies of the trade unions.
The RILU's demise also demonstrated just how empty its claim was that it represented an independent organisation, a long held criticism of the syndicalist and social democratic movements. This, though, does not mean that the RILU was designed as such from the beginning. Clearly, it had been conceived as an attempt to compromise with the syndicalists. As such it had certain room for manoeuvre so long as the syndicalists (or part of them) maintained some autonomy with respect to the Comintern and CPs. After the syndicalists either joined the CPs or split away, the RILU's early perspective changed. The RILU lost its own distinct momentum and simply turned into the 'trade union apparatus' of the Comintern, administering the trade union work of the parties at the international level.
This outline should make it clear why the thesis concentrates on the years from 1920 to 1923. The subsequent periods are only addressed insofar as the RILU attempted to maintain or regain a raison d'ętre, for example, in the dispute with the 'liquidationist' tendencies of the Russian trade unions or in 'discovering' a new mass base in the colonial countries. A special emphasis is also given to the role of the RILU's General Secretary, Alexander Lozovsky. Having headed it from the beginning until its dissolution, Lozovsky had a quite exceptional career inside international and, especially, Soviet communism surviving as he did the factional struggles of the 1920s as well as the purges of the 1930s (only to become a victim at the end of Stalin's life).
In addition to the many contemporary publications of the RILU and its adversaries, this thesis is largely based on material held in the RILU archive in the former Central Party Archive of the CPSU (now: RGASPI). Organised in the days of the Soviet Union it contains an enormous amount of trade union material from all over the world. It was therefore necessary to concentrate on papers which related to the central bodies (ie, leadership and congresses). Some additional material, though on a very limited basis, has also been consulted in the archives of the Soviet trade unions, as well as those of Western trade unions regarding relations and confrontations with the RILU and the Soviet trade unions. These include the trade union papers at Warwick and some archives of the International Trade Secretariats held both at Warwick and the Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung in Bonn.
