Reiner Tosstorff, The Syndicalist Encounter With Bolshevism, Anarchist Studies, Vol. 17, Issue 2,...

The syndicalist encounter with Bolshevism

Reiner TosstorffTranslated by Norry LaPorte

ABSTRACT

The Russian Revolution of 1917 represented a great opportunity for the interna-tional Left but also exacerbated tensions between those who argued for revolutionfrom below via industrial action and those who supported the Leninist conceptionof the vanguard party. This article draws from previously secret Soviet archivematerial and focuses on the dialogues and tensions between organs of the nascentBolshevik state and foreign syndicalist organisations post-1917 and the subsequentemergence of a distinctive anarcho-syndicalist current.

Keywords syndicalism, industrial associations, Bolshevism, Comintern, Profintern, ‘the tradeunion question’, ideological anarchism

This article is about the conflictual relationship of non-Russian syndicalist organi-sations with Bolshevism and the Communist International after the OctoberRevolution.1 The term ‘syndicalism’ is defined as covering all of the tendencieswhose self-perception gave precedence to the revolutionary trade union over theparty, if not its complete replacement. This rather dismissive relationship to theorganisational form of the party represented its main point of difference with theemergent communist movement. This does not mean that, aside from this maincharacteristic, there were not strong differences of opinion in syndicalist ranks. Thiscould be assumed from the contemporary political language, which differentiatedbetween Industrialists, Unionists and the ‘actual’ Syndicalists. In this way, one coulddifferentiate between organisations in the ‘craft trade union’ tradition of the FrenchCGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), industrial unions like the North

Anarchist Studies 17.2 © 2009 ISSN 0967 3393

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American IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) – who were better known as the‘Wobblies’ – or the then British Shop Stewards, as well as the ‘united (or unity)organisations’2 after the example of the German industrial unions, to say nothing ofthe more ‘exotic’ examples like supporters of the now forgotten Daniel DeLeon,who attributed to industrial associations equal rights alongside the party. Theseorganisational differences may have influenced the relationships that particulargroups forged with Bolshevism. Yet they were only a subordinate factor in thegeneral feud about the main issue of whether trade union or party had priority inthe class war. This article will not, however, deal with the complicated question ofthe anarchists’ – who are often wrongly equated with syndicalists – relationship tothe October Revolution, since they did not belong to such trade union organisa-tions.3 Indeed, there were significant anarchist tendencies which strongly rejectedwork in the trade unions as, by their nature, they inclined to reformism. Before theFirst World War, the self designation – above all in Romance languages – wassimply ‘syndicalist’4, which meant nothing more other than trade union movement;perhaps for clarity, the adjective ‘revolutionary’ was then added. ‘Anarcho-syndical-ism’ is then the later specific nexus of anarchism and syndicalism as first producedin the controversy about the Bolshevik revolution.

In summary, this article deals with revolutionary trade union associations whichwere self-sufficient and represented an ‘industrial strategy’, from wage struggles to thegeneral strike. They were united in strident criticism of parliamentarianism and thebureaucratisation of the ‘traditional’ trade unions; in other words, with what wetoday would call rejection of indirect representation.5 This portrait of revolutionaryunions has its main emphasis in southern Europe. Here, syndicalism dominated thetrade-union movement in many areas and was, thus, more influential than ‘Marxism’.This does not mean that syndicalism was not represented in many other countries;but that it tended to be a minority current.

Before the First World War, the Bolsheviks followed the model of the ‘orthodoxMarxism’of the German Social Democrats in their virulent rejection of syndicalism.Although syndicalism did not play a great role in the Russian workers’ movement,the Bolsheviks had ‘learned’ – by following debates in the international workers’movement – that it represented a ‘negative deviation’. Lenin used this in the interna-tional debates of the Bolshevik faction. For, apart from some anarchists, it was the‘ultra-Left’ Bolsheviks around Bogdanov and Lunacharsky who tried to make knownthe ideas of West European syndicalism to Russian workers and who, in Lenin’s eyes,appeared particularly deviationist.6 This negative attitude changed with the FirstWorld War. When social democracy split into supporters and opponents of the war,

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syndicalism (and anarchism) also experienced a similar development, even if thoseforces supporting the war were a minority. The result was that Bolshevism came intocontact with syndicalist groupings in the anti-war Left (Zimmerwald and Kienthal).The outstanding example of this syndicalist, anti-war Left was produced in Francewith the grouping around the journal La Vie Ouvrière inside the CGT. Its editorialcircle (of whom Pierre Monatte and Alfred Rosmer7 are particularly worthy ofmention) worked closely with Russian revolutionaries in exile in France (around thejournal Nashe Slovo). Appropriately, two of them, Leon Trotsky and, above all,Solomon Dridzo (who was later known by the pseudonym he used in the Russianmovement, Alexander Lozovsky) played an important part in the future discussionsbetween syndicalists and communists. The latter could even point to his own periodof activity in the CGT before the First World War.8

In addition, after the October Revolution the Bolsheviks also directed theirproclamations for the foundation of the Communist International to groupingsfrom the syndicalist sphere and called for their participation.9 Their call fell onfertile soil. In the years 1918 and 1919, the vast majority responded positively to thenews from Russia. Numerous examples can be found from across the world. At thebeginning of 1918 the leading Wobbly, Harrison George, wrote from his prison cell– where he was interned for his opposition to the war – a pamphlet about theRussian Revolution under the title Red Dawn, which found a wide circulation. TheArgentinean trade union federation FORA (Federación Obrera Regional Argentina)complemented its name to include the adjective communist in order to show its soli-darity with the Bolsheviks (i.e. was now known as FORA-C). At the end of 1918,the central organ of the Spanish CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) wrote:

Bolshevism is the name, but the idea is that of all revolutions: economic freedom[…] Bolshevism represents the end of superstition, of dogma, of tyranny and ofcrime […] Bolshevism is the new life for which we struggle, it is freedom, harmony,justice, it is the life that we want and will enforce in the world.10

What explains this positive embrace of the Bolshevik revolution? It is all the moresurprising as, in one way or another, many syndicalists came from an anarchist back-ground or were under this type of influence; to them, all sorts of Marxist politicswere treated with suspicion. The endorsements can be explained using a statementby the former Wobbly turned Communist, James P. Cannon, speaking decades laterto the historian Theodor Draper about his discussion in 1919 with the co-founderof the IWW, Vincent St. John: ‘I believe he was as sympathetic at that time, as I


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was. The revolution was an action – and that’s what he believed in.’11 TheBolsheviks had destroyed the capitalist state and thereby shown that revolution waspossible; by contrast, social democracy only spoke about socialism. This revolutionhad taken place against bourgeois parliamentarianism and under the influence ofthe soviets, the workers’ councils. It was, therefore, a revolution which had nothingto do with ‘politicians’. It took only one step to identify the soviets with tradeunions, the works syndicates. This argument is found in numerous contemporarysyndicalist statements.

In this early period there was no possibility for the syndicalists to familiarisethemselves systematically with the reality of Bolshevik power. Although the invita-tion had been extended, no syndicalists found their way to the founding congress ofthe Comintern in March 1919. Visiting Russia was first practically possible when theblockade of the country became ineffective in the spring of 1920 with the Bolshevikvictory in the civil war.

Before this, however, one question made itself conspicuous, anticipating futureconfrontations: the ‘trade union question’. Where communist parties were formed,they were normally created out of social democratic parties. Their membersbelonged to the socialist-led trade unions. Yet where syndicalist unions also existed,there was now conflict over the question of whether communists should join them,as these were unambiguously revolutionary, thus leaving the reformist trade-unionassociations.

The discussion had great significance in Germany, for example. One of thereasons for this was the role played by the Bolsheviks’ representative, Karl Radek.Bolstered by the authority of the Russian party, he attempted to implement so-called ‘cell building’ inside the Social Democratic-led trade unions. The nascentKPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands), which was still trying to win a massbasis of support, carried out a party split in a manner leading to confrontationwith its syndicalist tendency. It was not by chance that the syndicalist FAUD(Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands) went from a position of sympathy to aposition of confrontation with communism. Another example would be Sweden.In contrast to other countries in which communist parties were founded moreslowly (and – perhaps it was no coincidence – where syndicalists were muchstronger) the early quarrel over the trade union question did not take place. At thesame time a further question emerged: that of the ‘leading role’ of the party. Whatthis meant was whether a political party had the right to intervene in trade-unionaffairs, even imposing its political line on the trade unions through its members’factional activity.




In any case, from the positive views sketched above, a whole series of syndicalistorganisations – such as the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI), the CNT, the BritishShop Stewards and the revolutionary minority in the CGT – formally declared expres-sions of interest in the Comintern and therefore sent delegates to the Comintern’ssecond congress in the summer of 1920. Others sent at least observers, who – at thesame time – were furnished with the task of a sort of fact-finding mission about thesituation in Russia. Some syndicalist activists, however, made their way on their owninitiative, such as the Japanese Wobbly Taro Yoshiharo, or Bertho Lepetit and MarcelVergeat, who belonged to the CGT minority (who had also sent an official delegate,Alfred Rosmer, some time before). The situation in the summer of 1920 gave thesyndicalists, for the first time since the end of the war, a relatively representative gath-ering in Moscow. Despite much effort in Western Europe, this had not taken placesince the first gathering, which took place in London in 1913 (if one discounts theconsultation in Spanish El Ferrol in 1915, which was, in any case, not representative).

The sending of delegates by two syndicalist organisations to the re-foundationcongress of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), which was held inAmsterdam in July and August 1919, was even less of a success.12 As a concession tothe oppositional tendency during the war this was to become comprehensive inmembership, i.e. it would include syndicalists. There was even talk of the inclusionof Russian trade unions. But the Russians, who were in the midst of civil war and theblockade, did not come. Instead they denounced the congress as a gathering of‘yellow class traitors’ who wanted to tie the trade unions to the Versailles system and,thus, to capitalism; their alternative was the foundation of a revolutionary trade-union international. Both syndicalist organisations – from Germany and Holland –that participated reached a similar conclusion about the uselessness of the IFTUfrom a revolutionary perspective.13

It was against this background that syndicalist representatives met in Moscow inthe summer of 1920. Now at the second congress of the Comintern (23 July-7August), the syndicalists found out that their theories and strategies were incompat-ible with the Bolshevik understanding of the revolutionary party, althoughBolshevik leaders, like Trotsky, insisted that this was not very different from thesyndicalist term ‘the active minority’. Indeed, while the Bolsheviks stressed the neces-sity of political action as the lever to overthrow capitalist society, the syndicalistsstressed economic and industrial means.

At the same time, two other delegations also stayed in Moscow, who repre-sented the left wing of the IFTU or, more precisely, the Italian Trade UnionFederation and the British TUC (Trade Union Congress). In June they had begun




discussions with the Comintern leadership and representatives of the Russian tradeunions. It was decided to set up an alternative to the Amsterdam International, butit was initially left open whether this should be political – referring to the leader-ship of the IFTU and its majority line – or organised directly (a separaterevolutionary trade-union international). Now discussions with the syndicalistsbegan in order to include them in a manner firming up the intended challenge tothe IFTU. Immediately a whole series of theoretical and practical differences werearticulated. According to the leading Soviet negotiator and future leader of theRILU (Red International of Labour Unions), Alexander Lozovsky, they dealt withthe following topics: the relationship between the economy and politics; the neces-sity of the revolutionary party; the relationship to the Comintern; the question ofthe form of state (workers’ councils); and, finally, the problem of a split-off from, orfactional work (‘permeation’14) in, the reformist trade unions.15 On 15 July when,after long, difficult discussions, an agreement was signed calling for the foundationof the Provisional International Trade Union Council, it carried only the signaturesof the Russians, the Yugoslavs, the Italians, the Georgians, the Bulgarians, theFrench and the Spanish. While the first five organisations were communist led (or,like the Italians, close to communism), there were only two syndicalist signatories.Rosmer signed for the minority in the CGT – which was split into several tenden-cies of which he represented the most pro-communist, grouped around thenewspaper La Vie ouvrière. And, although the CNT had actually been very criticalof this move, Ángel Pestaña signed, as he felt tied by the decision to join taken atthe previous year’s CNT congress. All of the other syndicalists refused to sign. Inseveral rather ambiguous formulations, the founding declaration expressed thenecessity of removing opportunists from the trade-union movement, forming revo-lutionary cells in the existing trade unions and, finally, setting up a Council which,in the closest co-operation with the Comintern, should pursue the process of revo-lutionising the trade-union movement.

After vociferous discussion it was finally possible to get the agreement of allthe syndicalists, from the Shop Stewards through the USI – whose leader,Armando Borghi, did not arrive until very late in the proceedings – to AugustinSouchy of the FAUD. The basis for co-operation was now not the acceptance ofthe entire founding declaration, but only agreement on the principle of revolu-tionary class struggle. Finally, however, this support remained rather uncertain andunclear, and was also to form the basis of future differences of opinion andconfrontation, especially between the Russians and Souchy. He was accused bythem of deception, in that he had not understood his views in the discussion in




Moscow as a formal obligation to actually support such a Trade Union Councilback in Germany. At the end of August there was also a dispute when all of thesyndicalists, apart from Rosmer, refused to sign a resolution which spoke of thenecessity of organising bureaus of the Trade Union Council in the different coun-tries in co-operation with the communist parties.

In the end the Bolsheviks, using these means, could appoint the InternationalTrade Union Council as the organisational force for a new trade union interna-tional. After many postponements, the founding congress was to be held at thebeginning of July 1921 in Moscow. Most syndicalist organisations now abstainedfrom participating in the preparations for the congress. Instead, they met in Berlinin the second half of December 1920. Those present were representatives of theIWW, the Shop Stewards, the Dutch and Swedish Syndicalists, the minority in theCGT and FORA-Comunista , and included Russian observers (from theBolshevik-led trade unions). This conference – which is sometimes also known as apre-conference for a yet to be organised ‘proper’ conference – was characterised bygreat differences of opinion; not only between the Russian trade union representa-tives and all of the others, but also among the syndicalists. Some, above all theSwedish and German delegates, clearly showed their mistrust of the Bolsheviks,even if they had not yet proclaimed an open break with them, and called for theorganisation of their own international independent of the Bolsheviks. Others,however, looked for some sort of co-operation with the Bolsheviks. Finally,compromise formulations were found: support for co-operation with communistparties when there were common demands, and instead of ‘dictatorship of theworking class’ the adoption of the slogan ‘domination of the working class’. Allsyndicalists were called on to go to Moscow. An international bureau was set up,which has left few traces and apparently never contacted the Trade Union Councilin Moscow, as had actually been agreed.

Because of these developments, discussions about the Trade Union Council andabout co-operation with the communist parties shifted to the national organisations.In this regard, another factor emerged. In the summer of 1920, the syndicalist dele-gates had gone to Moscow not only to participate in the Comintern congress, butalso to gather information about the actual situation in Russia. After their returnthey published reports; ironically, the most critical of them, written by Borghi andPestaña, did not appear until a year later as, when they arrived in their homelands,they were immediately arrested. All of these reports gave unfavourable impressions ofBolshevik Russia. It was not just a question of the catastrophic economic situation;worse still, there was criticism of the political situation, the dictatorship, the oppres-




sion of revolutionaries who were not Bolsheviks, the role of the party and so forth.Because of this, the influence of what we could term ‘ideological anarchists’ wasstrengthened; that is, those syndicalists who were, in one way or another, in contactwith groups that had an affinity to anarchism and which now saw their earlier suspi-cions of ‘Marxism’ confirmed. Where there were relatively unhindered conditionsfor political discussion, the anarchists made an impact – such as in the campaign ofthe French Anarchists inside the CGT-minority against those with a pro-communistposition, and in the discussions in the FAUD. While contingent factors played theirpart, above all in the selection of delegates, with the exception of the FAUD all ofthem decided to participate in the founding congress of the future RILU. However,the participating organisations, with all their differences emphasised, decided tomandate their delegates to support an organisationally independent ‘economic’international, which would not be formally subordinate to the Comintern.

That the FAUD was the only organisation refusing to go to Moscow wascertainly no coincidence; nor was it only the result of decades of disagreementbetween Marxists and anarchists. It was in Germany that the confrontation overrevolutionary trade union tactics had gone furthest, that is the feud over workingwithin the reformist mass organisations or setting up separate revolutionary unions.In the Ruhr, the FAUD had suffered badly from pro-communist splits and had inthese very months experienced another defection – that of the seamen.

From the beginning, the founding congress of the Red International of LabourUnions16 (or, by its Russian acronym, Profintern) – which met in Moscow from 3until 19 July 192117 – was dominated by clashes between the Bolsheviks, supportedby other communist delegates, and the syndicalists. This began with the question ofmandates. Who was representative? Were delegates from communist minorities inthe trade unions which belonged to the Amsterdam International also reformist, aswas asserted by many – if not all – of the syndicalists? And how was the strength ofthese factions determined? Delegates took offence that the delegates from non-Russian republics represented overwhelmingly agrarian countries, or representednothing other than a part of Russia. At the same time the syndicalist movement in awhole host of countries was seriously divided, and therefore appeared with a numberof organisations that attributed to themselves very generous membership numbers.However, the Bolsheviks succeeded in imposing a framework for determining thenumber of votes by implementing a proposal by Lozovky, the main organiser of thecongress for the Trade Union Council, to the party leadership in April. This was themethod by which the Second International had already determined the number ofvotes at their congresses. Comprehensive delegations, to which a certain number of




votes were allocated, were formed for each country, which then had to divide up thenumber among the competing organisations on the basis of their individual strength.While these procedures undoubtedly showed aspects of manipulation, it saved theCommunists the misfortune of finding themselves in the minority.

If the dispute over mandates caused a bad atmosphere, then the highpoint of thisquarrel became the relationship between the Comintern and the future RILU. Whiletwo prominent syndicalists, Alfred Rosmer and Tom Mann – on behalf of the TradeUnion Congress – proposed a so-called ‘organic (i.e. permanent) link’ in the form ofmutual representation on the respective leadership bodies, almost all other syndical-ists rebelled against this idea and voiced their support for organisationalindependence.18 This opposition was expressed most strongly by the majority of theFrench delegation, which became the spokesman of the syndicalist minority andsubmitted a counter-proposal.

Not all syndicalists believed that the trade unions should always be the main organ-isations of the class struggle. They acknowledged that it would depend on historicaldevelopments within a concrete environment. But where there were strong syndicalisttraditions the party would be subordinate or, at best, of the same ranking; but certainlynever occupying the leading role, as the Comintern proposed as a general rule.

While most syndicalists voted for the French proposal, thereby opposing‘organic links’ with the Comintern, some did finally declare their support forRosmer’s proposal: the resolution was not about subordination, but recognised theindependent existence of the trade unions and provided only for close coordination.This support came mainly from the Spanish and a minority in the French delega-tion. Rosmer’s resolution passed with 287 votes, against 37 for thecounter-resolution. While this point on the agenda extended over five of the seven-teen sessions, there was a short continuation with the agenda item ‘tactics’. On thisissue a formal discussion developed on the historical status of revolutionary syndi-calism. The Spaniard Nin regarded its development as a positive synthesis of Marxand Proudhon, and the Frenchman Michel stated concisely that it was self-sufficient.They were severely opposed by the Bulgarian Dimitrov, who presented ‘Marxistorthodoxy’ in the sense of severe criticism of a deviation. In contrast, Lozovskyargued in the manner typical of the Bolsheviks’ courting of syndicalism. In the past,syndicalism had significance as a revolutionary answer to opportunism; therefore, inits time, it had been superior. Now, however, it would no longer be in a position togive the correct answer to the question of revolutionary strategy. The syndicalistswould now have to form a bloc with the Communists for the formation of a revolu-tionary mass party, especially where they had mass influence (and where the old,




pre-war social democracy had been weak and completely reformist). As a concession,Lozovsky proposed deleting a sentence in the statutes, which spoke of ‘ideologicalleadership’ over the RILU by the Comintern. Syndicalists like Nin and othersdeclared this to be unacceptable. It also brought Lozovsky up against persistentresistance on the part of communist delegates from Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, etc,who attacked this as an unacceptable concession, but the latter finally had to yield.

This discussion occupied only a small amount of time, yet the mood againbecame heated with the agenda point ‘organisation’, as this was about forming cellsin the reformist, mass-based trade unions instead of founding separate revolutionaryunions. However, it was obvious that many of the syndicalists had already exhaustedtheir energy with the earlier discussions. The French, in particular, held back, andleft the last appearances of the opposition to the representatives of the GermanUnionists, the delegates of the IWW, and a Canadian organisation close to them, aswell as some other small associations.

It is easy to understand why they behaved so decisively. The Communists stoodfor a united trade union organisation. Thus, they were opposed to splitting-off andleaving the existing trade unions. They even argued for dissolving the separate revo-lutionary unions and for joining the existing mass organisations, despite theirreformism. Revolutionary cells should be created in them. Therefore, the resolutionon organisational questions, which concerned itself with the situation in a wholeseries of countries, provided for the dissolution – or at least strict limitation – of theindependent unions.

While this exhausted the scheduled agenda, toward the end another questionsurfaced which, until then, had only been discussed by a few delegates on a purelyinformal basis outside of the official course of the congress: the fate of the Russiananarchists. After the Kronstadt uprising four months earlier, and the introductionafterwards of the New Economic Policy, the Bolsheviks’ oppression of their left-wingcritics had been stepped up through a series of arrests in March. The anarchistsimprisoned in Moscow, who had learned about the presence of the syndicalist dele-gates from abroad, decided in June to begin a hunger strike in order to force theirrelease or, at least, legal proceedings. With the help of some Anarchists, such as EmmaGoldman, Alexander Berkman and Alexander Schapiro, who remained at large, theytook up contacts with the foreign visitors – many of whom had a political past inorganised anarchism. Intensive discussions began with the Bolshevik authorities,which, by tacit agreement, were not carried out in public. After the congress, this ledto the release, then deportation, of most of them. However, on the last day of thecongress, the Bolshevik leader Bukharin gave a speech on the ‘counter-revolutionary




role’ of the Russian Anarchists, especially the Makhno movement. Initially, the syndi-calists were dumbfounded in their reaction; and it set off a great rebellion when thechairman, Lozovsky, refused to allow an answer from a Canadian delegate. ‘Delegatesstood on chairs singing the “Internationale” when Lozovsky endeavoured to speak.For several minutes the convention floor was not unlike the New York stock exchangewith every one shouting, including spectators who rushed from their seats onto theconvention floor itself.’19 Finally, a French delegate, Henri Sirolle, was able to make astatement in the name of the syndicalist delegations. After some smaller points, thisallowed the congress to end in greater accord, for example with the adoption of amessage of greetings to the Russian workers and to Lenin.

Why had the syndicalists remained so unsuccessful? The communist majoritycan certainly not be explained simply through manipulation of the delegates or theirmandates. Undoubtedly the communists represented a significant tendency in theinternational workers’ movement. And the argument of some syndicalists that thecommunists, merely by their membership of the Amsterdam International, mustalready be reformist was not very convincing. That was not the view of most revolu-tionary workers who, at this time, came to communism. Just as unconvincing,however, was the ways in which the Bolsheviks raised the number of their mandatesusing delegates from all Soviet Republics. Possibly not all trade union delegates withparty cards did represent what they claimed to represent.

Yet, the main problem for the syndicalists, as has been shown, proved to be thedisunity in their priorities. There were significant differences between the small,divided industrial unionists and those syndicalists working in mass organisations.Further, a certain fixation on the organisational question must be stated. It is inter-esting to note that, during the plenary meetings, not one of the syndicalistdelegates posed the question of the objectives of revolutionary trade unionsaccording to syndicalist theory: the future leadership of the socialist or collectiveeconomy. This question, which during the second congress of the Comintern stillhad had significance for Pestaña and Souchy, was only briefly raised by the ShopSteward leader, J. T. Murphy, in the commission on the statutes of the Red TradeUnion International.

Another factor, which certainly had a negative influence on the syndicalists,was that not every delegation included the best activists. This was true especially ofthe French, as the CGT congress was imminent and many leading members of theopposition had chosen to participate in it, instead of travelling to Moscow. Inaddition, behind the majority of the French delegation there was a secret ‘pact’,orchestrated by Victor Griffuelhes20, a formerly leading but now marginal veteran




of the pre-war CGT, which had the aim of guaranteeing a syndicalist hegemony,independent of any party meddling, over the revolutionary opposition in the CGT.(When this manoeuvre was revealed in 1922, it created a huge scandal and dealt aheavy blow to the ‘pure’ syndicalists and anarchists, effectively marginalisingthem).21 On top of that the delegate Michel Relenk, during the congress a hard-lineopponent of the communist majority, was denounced by his co-delegates because,immediately after the congress, he had submitted curious offers to the Bolshevikleadership to argue the case for the adhesion to the RILU in France, changing hismind in exchange for financial support. And Victor Godonnèche of the pro-communist minority within the French delegation complained that he had had torepresent a motion of the delegation majority in a commission, as the designateddelegation had not turned up out of lack of interest.

All in all, the syndicalists from the different countries had held a number of‘factional meetings’ and announced the formation of a sort of organised current; butin the end nothing came of it. An international syndicalist tendency in opposition toMoscow did not initially consolidate after this congress. Time was needed for thisand it would depend on the discussions inside the organisations.

On the other hand, the organisational question presented here which led tosuch loud outbreaks of opposition, in order to proclaim incompatibility withBolshevism, were not of such significance to all syndicalists. The counter-movemade by the Bolsheviks was to grant them an important concession at the secondcongress of the Red International of Labour Unions in November 192222, whichshowed their great interest in finally winning them over: they relinquished the‘organic connection’ with the Comintern. This helped, in particular, to win the newFrench revolutionary trade union federation, the CGTU (Confédération Généraledu Travail Unitaire) – which was founded after the split of the CGT at the end of1921 – for the RILU (especially after the outcry after the revelation of the ‘pact’).All this reinforced the deep gulf among the syndicalists between the ‘intransigents’and the pro-Bolshevik forces.

What certainly explains the behaviour of those syndicalists who consented to abloc with the Bolsheviks was, above all, success in struggle, which the Bolsheviksrepresented and which made them a magnet for every revolutionary. But some-thing more should be added: the stress on the economic, ‘industrial’ action, onworkers’ control through factory councils and on the principle of industry-widetrade unions as against craft unions, all of which were at the core of the commu-nist understanding of trade unionism. This, and similar ideas aimed at theimplementation of revolutionary trade union policies, had been missing from the




strategy of the Second International. Ironically, but not without reason, all thisearned the Bolsheviks the reproach of being syndicalists from their social-demo-cratic opponents (such as, for example, the Menshevik trade union expert SalomonSchwartz, and other trade union leaders who were active in the struggle againstcommunism).23

To use the words of the most prominent syndicalist defector to communism, theCatalan Andrés Nin – until his expulsion in 1928 a supporter of Trotsky and deputyto Lozovsky in the RILU leadership in Moscow – in a letter to the Madrid AnarchistMauro Bajatierra in September 1922:

Were there errors, injustices? Who doubts that? But who would have been able toavoid them? Are we all faultless? Anything but! And we did not make a revolution.And, at the same time, how absurd it would be to condemn syndicalism because itmade mistakes and, not insignificantly, it would be absurd to condemn the Russianrevolution for the same reasons.24

With knowledge of subsequent events, the fallacy of Nin’s evaluation is evident.But, for a complete balance sheet, several matters require our attention. A signifi-cant proportion of syndicalists who had advocated an alliance with the Bolshevikswere the first to rebel against the ‘Bolshevisation’ and Stalinisation of theCommunist International. To name only the best known of these rebels, theyincluded Alfred Rosmer and Pierre Monatte in France and Andrés Nin and JoaquínMaurín in Spain. It was no coincidence that most of these former syndicalists hadgood relations with Trotsky who, due to his experiences during his stay in Francefrom 1914 until 1916, was best able to evaluate the revolutionary potential ofsyndicalism. It is also easy to understand why these former syndicalists were in thefirst ranks of opposition communists from the mid-1920s. They belonged to ageneration which was deeply shaped by the revolutionary wave at the end of thewar, in which they had played a prominent role. Moreover, many of them werealready politically active before the war, some of them in leading positions. Theyhad joined the Bolsheviks because they represented revolution. When mattersunquestionably changed they could not acquiesce.

At the same time, however, it cannot be disputed that a number of former revo-lutionary syndicalists, above all those from subordinate positions and largelywithout lengthier experience of struggle, who belonged to a younger generation andwere first active from the beginning of the 1920s, now earned their livelihoods fromtrade union (or, sometimes, party) positions – thereby not so dissimilar from their




reformist comrades – and furnished Stalinism with a ‘proletarian’ basis and veneer.Names that could be mentioned in this respect would be Gaston Monmousseauand Benoît Frachon in France, Giuseppe Di Vittorio in Italy, and José Díaz inSpain. However, these syndicalist traditions were pushed into the background inthe course of the consolidation of Stalinism and, especially, by the course towardsthe Popular Front, which wanted to offer a more ‘moderate’ image of communism.This can be seen in the official historiography of individual parties. Although manyof the parties in ‘Latin’ Europe (and, to some extent, Latin America) owed to syndi-calism a good proportion of their mass basis as well as leadership corps, it wasbanished from the official historical image, and instead communism’s social demo-cratic roots were stressed. Even the last ‘official’ history of the Comintern, whichwas produced by the communist parties in the 1970s, presented an analogous viewat the level of the International.

Finally, a few concluding words about the ‘intransigent’ syndicalists. Withouttracing these developments in detail, as the Canadian historian Wayne Thorpe hasalready done, we should mention that this subdivision of syndicalism now found itsideological basis in anarchism to an extent which had not been so determining forpre-war syndicalism. (To which, in addition, the role of specific anarchist (affinity)groups is to be counted, which developed a particular interest in work inside therevolutionary trade unions in order to struggle against the pro-communist tenden-cies.) Revolutionary syndicalism became anarcho-syndicalism. At the end of 1922the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) was founded. However, itnever became an International based on mass influence (although one of the inter-esting – often overlooked – facets of its international impact was how it took hold inparts of Latin America).25 The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the absence ofa mass basis in most countries; and on the other hand, the rather contemptuousattitude towards the International on the part of the only really mass-based organisa-tion, the Spanish CNT, when, from 1936, this was in a position to play arevolutionary role but relinquished it. At the beginning of 1938, in a private letterfollowing an IWMA conference on the Spanish revolution, Emma Goldman had toconcede by looking back on the events surrounding RILU’s foundation:

Yes, my dear, we have come to a point [where] I never expected to arrive: to havetwo opinions. One for the outside world and one for intimate comrades andfriends. How I upbraided Bob Minor [in the summer of 1921, R. T.] when herefused to divulge to the public the horrors of the Soviet regime he disclosed toSacha [Berkman, R. T.] and me. How naive and childish we were to believe that a




revolution brought about by Anarchists will not impose measures wide of the markof our ideas.26

This article summarises some of the results of my study, Profintern: Die RoteGewerkschaftsinternationale 1920–1937, Paderborn 2004. In it are detailed refer-ences to the sources in archives and the secondary literature. In addition, the followingstudies should also be emphasised: Wayne Thorpe, ‘The Workers Themselves’.Revolutionary Syndicalism and International Labour, 1913–1923, Dordrecht, 1989,and the edited volume, Marcel van der Linden /Wayne Thorpe (eds.), RevolutionarySyndicalism. An International Perspective, Aldershot, 1990.

Reiner Tosstorff teaches history at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.He is the author of a history of the Profintern in German (Paderborn 2004). Otherrecent publications cover the history of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War andaspects of the International Labour Organisation in the inter-war period. He iscurrently researching a biography of the German metal workers leader in the earlyyears of the Weimar Republic, Robert Dissmann. Email [email protected]

NOTES

1. On the fate of Russian Syndicalists and Anarchists, see Paul Avrich, The RussianAnarchists, Princeton, N.J., 1967, and the documentation based on sources from theRussian archives, V. V. Krivenkiï (ed.), Anarkhisty. Dokumenty i materialy1883–1935gg., 2 vols., Moscow 1998/1999.

2. This refers to an organisational model aspiring to simultaneously perform the role ofparty and trade union.

3. For two case studies see: Santi Fedele, Una breve illusione. Gli anarchici italiani e laRussia sovietica 1917-1939, Mailand 1996; Jean Maitron, Le mouvement anarchiste enFrance. Vol. 2, De 1914 à nos jours, Paris 1975, pp. 41–55.

4. From the French ‘syndicat’: trade union.5. Literally, Stellvertreterpolitik.6. Robert C. Williams, The Other Bolsheviks. Lenin and his Critics, 1904-1914,

Bloomington 1986.7. On this key figure of those Syndicalists who early on became involved with the

Bolshevik revolution see the special issue ‘From Syndicalism to Trotskyism. Writingsof Alfred and Marguerite Rosmer’of Revolutionary History (vol. 7, no. 4. 2000).




8. Reiner Tosstorff, ‘Alexander Lozovsky: Sketch of a Bolshevik Career’, in SocialistHistory (34), (2009), pp. 1-19.

9. Miloš Hájek/Hana Mejdrová, Die Entstehung der III. Internationale, Bremen 1998, p.68.

10. Quoted in Antonio Bar, La CNT en los años rojos (Del sindicalismo revolucionario alanarcosindicalismo, 1910-1926), Madrid, 1981, p. 451.

11. James P. Cannon, The First Ten Years of American Communism, New York 1962, p.305.

12. As its headquarters were also relocated here from Berlin, it became known as the‘Amsterdam International’, see Geert van Goethem, The Amsterdam International. TheWorld of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 1913–1945, Aldershot2006; Reiner Tosstorff, Kurze Geschichte des Internationalen Gewerkschaftsbundes. 85Jahre Amsterdamer Internationale, Hamburg 2004.

13. Only one small syndicalist organisation from Argentina, which was also called FORA(but without the addition of ‘communist’), belonged to the IFTU until 1922; it wasisolated in the international movement.

14. I am using the historical term ‘permeation’ here instead of ‘entryism’, a more familiarterm, but invented and used much later than these events. But it is the term stillusually used in the secondary sources on British syndicalism.

15. A. Losowski (=Lozovsky), Der Internationale Rat der Fach- und Industrieverbände(Moskau gegen Amsterdam), Berlin 1920, p. 46. In this pamphlet, Lozovsky gives hisaccount of the origins of the international trade union council.

16. During its early beginnings, mainly the name Red Trade Union International wasused, due to the British presence. But later on, growing participation from the US‘Americanised’ its name.

17. The course of the congress was documented in a continuous bulletin (totalling 16issues) which, afterwards, was published – together with supplementary material – asits proceedings. According to details in the RILU press and in reports published byparticipants, the bulletin appeared in the four languages used at the congress – Russian,German, English and French. However, of the German edition, only the first sevenissues can be found, so that we have to use a complete Russian copy. (The entire editionappeared under the title: 1yi mezhdunarodnyi kongress revoliutsionnykh, profession-al’nykh i proizvodstvennykh sojuzov. Stenograficheskyi otchet, Moscow 1921.)Additionally, the speeches to some of the points on the agenda as well as the resolutionswere published as self-standing pamphlets. The material in the RILU archive on thefirst congress is very fragmentary. There are no complete stenographic records of all thesessions, nor are there complete records of delegates and the congress commission. An




additional set of sources are the depictions of the course of the congress by several dele-gates, especially the syndicalist minority, after their return home; these are a usefuladdition and, occasionally, a means of correcting the official proceedings.

18. Rosmer’s speech is reprinted in the above mentioned special issue of RevolutionaryHistory (note 7), pp. 67-80, together with a short introduction (‘The links betweenthe Comintern and the RILU’, pp. 60-66) by this author.

19. George Cascaden, ‘Shall Unionism Die?’, n. p. n. d., p. 82.20. On this significant personality in the French workers’ movement, see Bruce

Vandervoort, Victor Griffuelhes and French Syndicalism, 1895-1922, Baton Rouge1996.

21. For a detailed account of the ideological background, sympathetic to the anarchist andsyndicalist critics of the communists within the revolutionary opposition of the CGT,very soon to become a new trade union federation, the CGTU, see David Berry, AHistory of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917-1945, Westport – London, 2002, esp.pp. 113-146.

22. Here too we must go back to the Russian version as the ostensibly published proceed-ings in German could not be located. See: II kongress Krasnogo InternatsionalaProfsojuzov v Moskve. 19 noiabrja – 2 dekabria 1922 goda, Moskau – Petrograd 1923;Bjulleten’ II kongressa Krasnogo Internatsionala Profsojuzov v Moskve v Kolonnom zale I-go Doma Sojuzov 19-go noiabria 1922 goda, Moscow 1922.

23. See the entry on the RILU by Salomon Schwartz, including quotes from the ActionProgramme and from the resolution on tactics at the founding congress, in: LudwigHeyde (ed), Internationales Handwörterbuch, des Gewerkschaftswesens, 2 vols., Berlin1931f, vol. 2, pp. 1348–1359, here p.1350. For Schwartz, an ‘orthodox Marxist’ in thetradition of the Second International, this ideological adaptation was the price thatthe Bolsheviks had to pay for their co-operation with the Syndicalists. Lozovsky eluci-dated the aims and methods of the Red International of Labour Unions in hispamphlet: Das Aktionsprogramm der Roten Gewerkschafts-Internationale, Berlin 1921,2nd edition 1922.

24. ‘Carta de Andreu Nin a Mauro Bajatierra’, in: Revista de historia moderna y contempo-ranea, no. 1, 1980, pp. 25–31.

25. Vadim Dam’e, Zabytyi internatsional, 2 vols., Moscow, 2006/2007.26. David Porter [ed.], Vision on Fire. Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution, New

Paltz 1983, p. 307. Robert Minor, a famous cartoonist, who visited Russia in the earlydays of the revolution, had originally been sympathetic to anarchism, but then becamea Communist.




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