Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/121



During the month of July the Red Trade Union International held its first congress in Moscow. This body is the labor union section of the general international Communist movement—the other sections being the III International (political party), the Women's Communist International, the Society of Communist Youth, and the International Council of Red Co-operatives. The Red Trade Union International is an outgrowth of the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions, which was formed a year ago in Moscow by a group of labor militants from various countries called together by the III International and the Russian Trade Union movement.

The congress held its sessions in the Moscow labor temple, a splendid building formerly used as a clubhouse by the nobility. There were 380 delegates in attendance, from 41 countries. They represented many types of organizations, including general national labor movements (Russia, Spain, etc.) separate independent unions (I. W. W., Amalgamated Food Workers, Unione Syndicale, Freie Arbeiter Union, etc.), organized minority committees in the old trade unions (France, England, Germany, etc.), and trade union central bodies (Seattle Central Labor Council, Detroit Federation of Labor, etc.). Due to the nature of some of the organizations, it was difficult to state just how many workers were represented in the congress, but the Provisional Council estimated them at 17,000,000.

One of the most important questions dealt with by the congress was that of how the new International is to secure the affiliation of the world’s workers; whether through the building of new unions or the capture of the old ones. On this matter Lossovsky, President of the All-Russian Trade Unions, and later elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Red Labor Union International, commented as follows in the thesis on "Organization":

"The policy of breaking off from the trade unions by the revolutionary elements, thanks to which the great masses are abandoned to the influence of traitors to the working-class, plays into the hands of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy