Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/48

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

(44)

not known. What has the international federation done to fight against international reaction? Nothing. What is the attitude of the international federation to the League of Nations and the Labour Bureau. Evidently, friendly, because the Vice-president of the International Federation of Trade Unions, Jouhaux, and the Secretary of the Federation, Oudegeest, are members of the notorious bureau. That is sufficient to show that the International Federation of Trade Unions is a corpse which will become decomposed with the decomposing League of Nations. This is why the Trade Unions of Russia frankly declare to the international proletariat that "our way and the way of the corpses of the International Federation of Trade Unions are not the same."

Unity with the Third International.

We see, therefore, that both centres created by the agile hands of the social patriots are everything else in the world but militant proletarian organisations. Meanwhile the co-ordination of the activities of all the labour organisations on an international scale is a premise to, and a condition of the victory of the social revolution. The Russian trade unions have long ago taken this into consideration and for that reason have been in favour of the Third International long before the foundation of this organisation. Standing on the platform of the social revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, and marching under the banner of the Russian Communist Party, the Russian trade unions have long since been an inseparable part of the Third International. The 3rd Congress merely formulated and strengthened the connection which sprang up as the result of outlook and unity of revolutionary action. "The fight of the international proletariat"—says the resolution of the 3rd Congress of Trade Unions—"is conducted, not for the reform of capitalism, but for its abolition. In this revolutionary, struggle all the class conscious revolutionary elements of the working class more and more determinedly rally to the Third International as the organisation which is the incarnation of the world proletarian revolution."

The Third International is not as some think an organisation composed merely of political parties. The Third International is a fighting revolutionary class centre, which is acccessible to all proletarian, political, trade union and co-operative organisations, which, not in words, but in deeds, fight for socialism. It would be a great crime on our part if we attempted to create a special trade union international. It would at best result in the dispersal of forces and at worst, would be a bad edition of the Second International in the form of an International Federation of Trade Unions. All the revolutionary class trade unions must enter the Third International in which they must organise trade union sections or secretariats. For that reason the 3rd Congress decided to join the Third International and to call upon the revolutionary class unions of all other countries to follow its example.