Page:Scott Nearing - Stopping a War (1926).pdf/9



French working class groups opposed to the Riff campaign began their offensive by organizing the Central Committee of Action, Originally this Committee was composed of representatives from the General United Federation of Labor, from the Communist Party, from the Republican Association of Ex-soldiers, from the Communist Youth Movement, and from the Tenants' League.

During the Labor Anti-war Congress held in Paris on July 4–5, 1925, under the auspices of the Committee of Action, the Committee was reorganized. Members were added representing the peasants, the colonials, the organizations of women, the General Federation of Labor, and the Socialist Party. In this form the Committee represents the nearest approach to a united front that the French workers have been able to establish since the war.

The Committee of Action has branches or sections in most of the principal industrial centres of France. There are local branches, district or regional branches, and departmental branches. Each time that a labor congress is held in a locality or in a department an effort is made to have it organize a local or departmental Committee of Action.

Behind the Committees of Action and affiliated with them, a movement is under way to organize a Committee of Proletarian Unity in each factory, shop, station, and mine. All workers who desire to establish proletarian unity are included in these Unity groups. No distinction is made regarding political beliefs. They are the product of a widespread desire to get the working class together.

The Central Committee of Action, to use the words of its Secretary, "is not an organization. It is a grouping together of organizations for common action. The Committee does not levy on affiliated organizations. It is supported by voluntary contributions. It is a united front for a specified object—the Moroccan War campaign."

The Committee of Action was directed by the Paris Congress of July 4–5 to establish local bodies throughout France; to agitate for the organization of similar committees in England, Spain, and Italy; to issue a series of appeals to working women, to young workers, to soldiers, to sailors, to the middle class, to the peasants and to the colonial peoples. The Committee was also