Page:Resolutions and Decisions of the Third Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (1924).pdf/7



During the last months the tendency for the withdrawal from the unions has been strengthened in some countries. These moods were manifested particularly in Germany, in connection with the going over of the social democracy and of the union bureaucrats to the side of the Fascist reaction. No matter how much we understand these moods psychologically, a most determined and vigorous struggle should be launched against them. The R. I. L. U. remains on its old platform of THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. The call for the destruction of the unions should be resolutely and emphatically repudiated; this should be done not out of a fetishist reverence for form, but because the CONQUEST OF THE MAJORITY OF THE WORKING CLASS IS SERIOUSLY HINDERED BY THE SPLITS OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. The struggle for unity means also the struggle for the RETURN TO THE UNIONS OF THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT THEM. Where the labor movement has been split (France, Czecho-Slovakia, Roumania, Jugo-Slavia) a bitter struggle for the UNIFICATION OF THE BROKEN PARTS should be conducted, and labor unity should be fought for at any price. This unity can be re-established after long struggles among the masses against the disruptive policies of the reformists and through the calling of general labor congresses where all the unions should be represented on the basis of proportional representation. On this question no concessions can be made.

The struggle for the re-establishment of unity will be possible only if we clearly put before us the aim of winning the masses through the conquest of the labor unions. Under the conquest of the unions the followers of the R. I. L. U. never understood the conquest of the bureaucratic upper circles, of the halls and funds of the unions. IT IS A QUESTION OF CONQUERING THE MINDS OF THE MASSES, OF WINNING THEM FOR THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM. No matter how obnoxious the labor bureaucracy, and it is becoming more obnoxious every day, the revolutionary work within the labor organizations should be continued steadily and systematically. It is necessary to win the masses away from the reformist ideology (and reformist practice) and this is possible only in the every-day struggle within the labor organizations. Sensing the approaching danger, the labor bureaucracy sweeps away the remnants of democracy in the trade unions; everything is being decided by the officialdom. IT IS NECESSARY TO STRENGTHEN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE UNION OFFICIALDOM, against the settling of all questions. behind the curtains of bureaucracy, and to open a determined fight against the labor reactionaries. It is necessary to arouse the initiative among the masses and to make the rank and file interested in the activity of the chiefs. Whenever events take place which agitate the masses, special committees to control the activity of the union leaders should be elected. To the treachery of the labor bureaucracy we must respond not by the slogan of "Destroy the unions," but by the slogan, "DOWN WITH THE BUREAUCRATS SELLING OUT THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING CLASS."

The growth of the revolutionary labor movement is evidenced not only in the formation of R. I. L. U. minorities, but also in the appear-