Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/75

 Rh world. This is characteristic of the reformist trade union movement, which has a vast number of separate organizations, any one of which is interested in its own economy and which strives to remain in the borders of its craft.

In order to show how widely split is the trade union movement of the present day, we will give the following examples: In the American Federation of Labor there are over one hundred units, and in the whole German Federation of Trade Unions there are fifty-four centralized unions. There are over fifty such unions in France; over a hundred are in England, although England is now going through a period of amalgamation. It is sufficient to mention that in Russia we have only twenty-two industrial unions.

These industrial internationals are characterized not only by their separatism—this is only a half of the evil. There are a few internationals, as for instance the metal workers, the mine workers, the laborers, the transport workers, which could play a big role in the class struggle (by "laborers" we understand also those who in many countries are part of the factory workers handling chemicals). But if we will take the last few years of the existence of these unions, we will see that they played no role even in their own industries, so much less in international policies or at a time of great international conflicts.

In a few examples we will endeavor to show the tactics of these internationals and the tactics of the revolutionary unions. All of course remember the famous great strike of the British miners at the beginning of 1921. This strike which embraced over a million miners of England, was of great significance to the whole British labor movement, and especially to the miners' movement. What is characteristic of this strike, is, first, its isolation within the country.

The Triple Alliance, the agreement between the Miners, Transport Workers and Railwaymen for common action broke up with this strike. The Transport Workers and Railwaymen did not support the Miners and the latter were isolated on a national and international scale, because no organization of mine workers did anything to support their British comrades.

How did the mine owners of England succeed in smashing this movement? Thanks to the German, American, and Belgian coal! Thus, the members of one and the same international gave the British mine owners the opportunity to crush this colossal and powerful movement, to drive back this revolutionarily-inclined federation of mine workers.

However, the British mine workers who were defeated took their revenge during the strike of the American coal miners. In 1922, 500,000 American coal miners were striking, This time the British workers