Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/120

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WORLD'S TRADE UNION MOVEMENT

In Mexico we have about 30,000 followers; in Argentina ,about 40,000; in Chile, 60,000; in Uraguay, about 15,000; in Egypt our influence affects about 50,000 members.

I will stop on Asia. From the countries which are part of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, it is sufficient to point out only Bokhara and Khiva, where we have small units. In Dutch-India we count 27,000 of our followers; in Persia, 20,000; in Japan, 60,000; in China about 100,000 workers are connected with us; in New Zealand, about 50,000 stand on the platform of the Profintern.

Thus, although the Amsterdam International is numerically stronger than the Profintern, still a point of special importance, the followers of the latter are all over the world. Therefore, the Profintern is an International in the full sense of the word.

The calculation of our forces along the industrial, vertical line, will give us the following picture: We have one half of the Transport Workers; about a half of the Metal Workers; between 40 and 50 per cent of the Building Trades; over a half of the Wood Workers; about 40 per cent of the Leather Workers.

The Tendency for Development of the Profintern

Thus, we confront two Internationals, the numerical relation of whose forces may be characterized the following way: The Amsterdam International unites between 14,000,000 and 15,000,000 members, Its bases are the British and German unions; these two countries embrace 70 per cent of all organized workers within that International.

We unite between 12,000,000 and 13,000,000, If we would describe these two Internationals graphically, by comparing two lines, the line of the Amsterdam International would be longer than ours. But the tendency for development of the Amsterdam International and of the Profintern, if we take the last years, is different in that the membership of the Amsterdam International is steadily getting smaller and that of the Profintern is growing larger.

And, because our unions are more active—they are revolutionary for that purpose—independently of the fact that they are generally smaller in numbers, they are politically more influential. Their specific gravity is greater, they are more united, not being torn with nationalist contradictions and craft jurisdictional squabbles.

The forces of the Profintern are also stronger because the Amsterdam International has no followers within our organizations, while we do have followers within the Amsterdam International.

Now, if we exclude from the Amsterdam International all those having our point of view, the remainder will be divided in two camps over the question of the United Front. The representatives of the left