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Trade Unions session 13. 1 march 1922, noon Trade Unions Reports on the trade-union question. Chair: Kolarov. Speakers: Zinoviev, Bokányi, Lozovsky, Brandler. Zinoviev: We have present with us in this hall a delegation of Hungarian com- rades who have been released from the prisons of white Hungary and arrived in Moscow yesterday. These are comrades who conducted themselves heroically and also acted as revolutionary fighters during the trial. (Bokányi of the Hungarian delegation was given the floor. He eloquently greeted the Russian workers and the Third International. The session then moved to the next point on the agenda.) Reports on Trade-Union Question Lozovsky: I will speak first of the trade-union question’s general importance. The provisional council of trade-union federations, established on 15 June 1920 at the trade-union Zimmerwald, did not at first have a clear programme. The first congress of revolutionary trade unions was held in Moscow 3–19 July 1921. It laid the foundation stone of the great trade-union international.1 In building the Red International of Labour Unions there has been a contra- diction from the outset. It includes, on the one hand, entire organisations, as in Russia, Yugoslavia, and Spain and, on the other hand, minorities in the old reformist organisations. It consists of four currents: 1.) A rather large number of Communists, who have a precise and clearly defined programme. 1 A reference to the July 1921 founding congress of the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU, also referred to as the Profintern, based on its name in Russian). The ‘provisional coun- cil’ formed in June 1920 was the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions. By referring to ‘the trade-union Zimmerwald’, Lozovsky seems to be saying that the pre- liminary June 1920 meeting led to the formation of the RILU just as the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference led to the eventual formation of the Communist International. For Zimmerwald itself, see p. 529, n. 2. © Mike Taber, 2018 / John Riddel, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004366787_018 186 first plenum session 13 2.) Revolutionary syndicalists, who have learned a great deal from the war and the revolution and who seek, just like the anarchists, to create a bloc of all revolutionary forces. 3.) The far left wing of anarcho-syndicalism, which has nothing in common with the Communist International and seeks to build a purely trade-union organisation on the basis of anarchism and syndicalism. 4.) The fourth current is championed by representatives of the Italian work- ers’ federation. Comrades Bianchi and Azimonti criticised the viewpoint of the left reformists rather fully on behalf of the Italian confederation. These four currents clashed at the first [RILU] congress. The difficulties have not yet been overcome. The first difficulty was raised by our French comrades, the Communists and the revolutionary syndicalists, who – still unaware of the congress decision – demanded complete independence, autonomy for the fed- erations, and the immediate convocation of a special congress.Their viewpoint reflected the old syndicalist theory based on the Amiens Charter, a lady of rather advanced age. This unfortunate Amiens Charter is, as you know, a bible for our French syndicalists.2 Taking their stand on this bible, the syndicalists launched an opposition against the trade-union International. In the French CP we see an unusual and peculiarly French drama: Commun- ists, party members, defend this Amiens Charter in their party’s main newspa- per, argue for complete union independence from the party and, in general, for the slogan of trade-union independence, which is a purely anarchist and anti- Communist notion. The party has done nothing to mount an opposition to this work in the organisation and to defend the concept of a bloc of syndicalists and Communists. The party remained neutral and waited upon events, leaving it up to Moscow to resolve the problem. Only on the eve of the Marseilles Congress did an article on the trade-union movement appear in L’Humanité. The trade-union movement of France is dominated by an anarchist theory that goes by the imprecise designation of ‘absolute independence’. This theory, coming from syndicalism of the past, goes roughly as follows: Trade unions will prepare the revolution, carry it out, and bring about its results. That is more or less the theory that you can fish out of numerous pamphlets, books, and articles dealing with revolutionary syndicalism. There is another interesting phenomenon in France: not only do revolution- ary syndicalists and some party members adhere to the Amiens Charter, but 2 Adopted by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT) in 1906, the Amiens Charter was a programmatic platform for revolutionary syndicalism. For the text, see Riddell (ed.) 2015, 3WC, p. 607..
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