Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/64

 60 its October character, we notice a very strong inimical attitude to it, to Bolshevism, to Communism, in short to everything connected with the Russian Revolution.

Here we must note a few moments which are very peculiar in attitude of the Amsterdam International toward the Russian revolution. I already said that the Amsterdam International is categorically and sharply against all our conceptions. It is against the dictatorship of the proletariat, for it prefers the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. But every time the Russian revolution was passing through a crisis the Amsterdam International attempted to defend the Russian revolution. Here we have the inner contradiction. This contradiction appeared clearly, especially after the crushing of the Hungarian revolution and at the moment of the Polish offensive against Soviet Russia.

All the organizations which are affiliated with the Amsterdam International, as well as the International itself, could not find words enough to stigmatize the Hungarian revolution which brought into Central Europe the "barbarian, Asiatic, Bolshevik "methods. But when the reaction of Horthy conquered, then the Amsterdam International came out in defense of the Hungarian workers, in defense of the unions than being destroyed. It would seem more logical to support the Hungarian workers at the time they were in power, which is the most proper time for support, and not when tens of thousands have been killed, when hundreds of thousands have been exiled.

Why did the Amsterdam International come out in defense after the destruction of the revolution in Hungary? Because it had to show this face to the workers who had been members of its own unions. It had to show that it is fighting against reaction, that it is defending the workers of other countries. By this stand it almost said the following: "Although the Hungarian workers have been mistaken, we must defend them." Thus, the Amsterdam International was compelled to take the position of defending the workers of this or another country by the pressure from below, by its efforts to keep the masses under its influence, which would leave it if it showed no external phase of activity.

As far as the relations between the Amsterdam International and Soviet Russia are concerned, there are many cases where its leaders, came out openly and sharply against Bolshevik Russia, against the Comintern, etc. Why, then, did the Amsterdamers suddenly remember in the time of the Polish offensive against Soviet Russia, that Soviet Russia is the land of victorious revolution?

The more extreme reformists insisted that Czarism and Bolshevism is one and the same thing, and at the same time they were crying for the saving of the revolution. What is the use of saving it, when there is no revolution, when it is already dead? But this contradiction could be found in the whole of international reformism. This theory of theirs