Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/58

 54 present economic struggle, trade union lines are too narrow; the struggle goes beyond national borders and that is why the International exists, to internationalize the struggle itself. We find ourselves in such a phase of the development of society, in which only on the international scale is it possible to attain a victory even in the purely economic sphere. Even in the question of wages, the international market regulates the price. And from the Amsterdam International there was during all the time of capitalist advance not even one act of international character, no international action, no international demonstration which would place the International against advancing capital as a unit. There were only isolated actions, separate economic strikes, separate conflicts in separate countries.

This characteristic of the Amsterdam International and its organizations is not only in the prevalence of nationalism over internationalism, but also in the prevalence of craft over industrial and class interests within the boundaries of the one nation. This is especially clear from the labor struggle in England. At the time of the famous miners' strike at the beginning of 1921, after the strike lasted for thirteen weeks they were left alone, isolated. And such organizations as the union of railway and transport workers, which had been with them in the Triple Alliance did not aid them. And the day on which these unions refused to aid the miners went down in history as "Black Friday."

In 1922, there was a great struggle; the lockout of the British metal workers. A few hundred thousand metal workers (36 unions) were drawn into the struggle. Did the other unions help the metal workers? No! And the metal workers of other countries did not help either. Separate regiments on separate fronts are conducting the fight, and not only do they get no help from the International, but they are defeated by the lack of aid from the workers of their own territory.

The tactics of the Amsterdam International, that is, the prevalence of the craft over the class, the prevalence of national over international interests, brings about the defeat of the separate parts of this International in the struggle against perfectly organized capital.

I know very well the activities of the Amsterdam International during this period and may, entirely objectively considering its activity, state that nothing was done; and this lack of action on an international scale is the main characteristic of the Amsterdam International. If not in principle, at least in practice, for this International based on national organizations every one of which defends the interests of its bourgeois state, such an International naturally is unable to fight. And during the whole period of capitalist advance we did not see a united struggle, we did not see even a serious attempt of economic aid to assist one or the other sectors of the social front.