LECTURE NO. 8
The Relation of Forces of the Reformist and Revolutionary
Trade Union Movements and Their Perspectives
The Force of the Profintern
IN the former lecture we dwelt upon the fundamental questions which face the working class, the different attitudes towards which divides the international trade union movement into a few camps. Let us now estimate the specific gravity and compare the real power of each of the existing internationals. I have pointed out that the peculiarity of the Profintern is in that part of its army is found within the ranks of the trade unions of the reformists' International.
The Profintern has eight types of affiliated organizations:
1) General trade union centers which embrace all of the trade union movement of the given country: Russia, 5,000,000; Australia, 400,000; Bulgaria, 40,000; Egypt, 50,000; Persia, 20,000; Esthonia, 25,000, etc.
2) General trade union or district revolutionary centers which exist alongside the reformists and conducts a struggle against them, where our organizations are stronger than the reformists': France, 450,000; Czecho-Slovakia, 300,000; Java, 27,000; China, etc.
3) General trade union centers which play a smaller role in the trade union movement of their countries than the reformists': Holland, 20,000; Belgium, 12,000; Germany, 150,000; United States, 25,000, etc.
4) General trade union centers which stand on the platform of the Profintern, but on account of the White Terror are not affiliated with it: Finland, 50,000; Roumania, 60,000; Jugo-Slavia, 100,000, etc.
5) Separate independent unions which are not affiliated with the general trade union centers of their countries or have been expelled from them: Germany, 40,000; Austria, 10,000, etc.
6) The minorities within the reformist trade unions, united under the direct leadership of the Communist fractions: Germany, 3,000,000; Japan, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, etc.
7) Oppositional blocs which unite all the left elements within and without the reformist and the anarcho-syndicalist unions: United States; Great Britain; Spain; Austria; Argentina; Mexico, etc.
8) Finally, the left elements united in the Councils of Unemployed as in England, Shop Steward Committees, etc., which usually support the policies of the Profintern.
This varied organizational structure of our followers does not give the possibility of getting a complete and exact number of the adherents
