The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 14, 1924, Page 10

“The World’s Trade Union Movement” “The World's Trade Union Move- ment by A. Lozovsky, published by the Trade Union Educational League. (A Review) By FRANK EVANS those whose misfortune it has been to dig and delve into the numberless wearisome volumes written by industrious and often ideal- istic collegians who have been taken over upon graduation by pig-jowled union bureaucrats as intellectual at- mosphere, this new book, “The World’s Trade Union Movement,” will seem almost too good to be true. For the digging and delving, thru inter- minable pages of mixed useless detail, stale statistics and ideological justi- fication for class conciliation and col- laboration, have been done to bring to light the vital forces in the labor movement and their relation to each other and to the problem—usually concealed in such books—of emancipa- tion of the working class. Here at last is a book on unionism that you can actually enjoy! Here is a book that deals not so much with the statistical measurement of unions, but of the deep, tidal influences that are moving the forty millions of organized unionists thruout the world onward and onward... ! No, it is not so fast as we would have it move. It is a process; a process we Can ac- OBSERVATIONS OF A PUBLICIST (Continued from page 5) s tion for socialist economy, while alongside us thruout the whole world, countries more advanced, a thousand times richer and miiltary more pow- erful than we, are continuously re- trogressing as regards “their” eco- nomy which they hold as sacred and which they have tested and experi- enced for centuries. il. On Fox-Hunting; on Levi; on Serrati. It is said that the best method of fox-hunting is the following: The fox is encircled at a certain distance by means of a rope with small red flags cellerate by our activity, certainly, but an historical process none the less. The Red International of Labor Unions, whose general secretary, A. Losovsky, gave this book to the world thru a series of lectures before the school of the Russian Communist Party last year, has brought into this historical process the objective anal- ysis and incisive direction of inter- national Communism which has be- come the dynamo of revolutionary action thruout the world. This book is a story of unionism as a world movement, how it became a world movement, of the differing ideo- logical currents within the great stream, their varying specific gravity in social power, the relation of these forces to each other, and the picture —almost a prophecy—based upon Marxian estimation, of the future de- velopment of the trade union move- ment. There are eight lectures given, and in each is portrayed the vital aspects of one or more of the leading currents of the world’s unions. Losovsky takes up first the broad outline of difference between the trade unions of the world before and after the war, showing the profound éffect that great human slaughter and historical crisis had upon world unionism. The three pre-war main currents of wrong and that they were in fact agents of the bourgeoisie within the workers’ movement. This is an un- disputed fact. But this undisputed fact does not eliminate the fact that in single cases the Mensheviks were right as against the Bolsheviks, as for instance in the question of the boy- cott of the Stolypin Duma in 1907. Eight months have already passed since the third congress of the Com- munist International. Evidently our dispute of that time with the “left” has already become antiquated, has already been decided by life. I have proved to be wrong as regards Levi because he has successfully shown that he had entered the Menshevik path not by chance, not incidentally, not only by reason of “exaggeration” in face of the most dangerous error of the left, but persistently, definitely, out of his very nature, Instead of honestly acknowledging after the third congress of the Communist In- ternational the necessity of seeking again to be admitted into the party— as a man has to do who has incident- ally lost his head out of anger on ac- attached, not teo high above the snow. The fox, fearful of this palpably arti- ficial “human” apparatus, emerges from the circle only at the spot where the hunter expects him. One would think that with such a creature as the fox, which is hunted by everybody, caution would prove an extremely valuable quality. But here “exaggera- tion” of a “virtue” converts it into a disadvantage. The fox is caught pre- cisely because of his excessive cau- tion. I must confess to one error which I was fated to commit at the Third Congress of the Communist Interna- tional,—this also on account of exces- sive caution. At that Congress I stood on the extreme right wing. I was con- vinced that this was the sole correct position, because a very numerous (and “infiuential”) group of delegates, with many German, Hungarian and Italian comrades as their leaders, oc- cupied an exaggerated “left” and an incorrectly “left” position, too often substituting for a sober consideration of the circumstances, which were not very favorable for a rapid and im- mediate revolutionary activity, a vig- orous waving of small red flags. Out of caution and in my care that this undoubtedly incorrect deviation to- wards leftism should not give an er- ronous tendency to the whole tactics of the Communist International, I de- fended Levi by every means, express- ing the view that, owing perhaps to an exaggerated fear of errors of the left, he had lost his head (I did not deny that he had lost his head) and that there had been cases where com- munists, who had lost their heads, aft- erwards had “found” them again. Even admitting—in face of the pres- sure of the “left’—that Levi was a Menshevik, I pointed out, that even such an admission did not decide the case, For instance, the whole history of the struggle, lasting for fifteen years (1903—1917) between the Men- sheviks and the Bolsheviks in Russia shows, a8 also shown by the three Russian revolutions, that the Men- general wore absolutely ce ea ee ee count of some errors of the left—Levi began to attack the party, to create obstacles for it, i. e., to render prac- tical service to the agents of the bour- geosie in the Second and Second and a Half International. Of course the German Communists were quite right in replying to this by further expel- ling some gentleman who had secretly offered help to Paul Levi in this noble action. The development of the German and of the Italian Communist parties after the third congress of the Com- munist International shows that the “left” have become clear regarding the errors committed by them at that congress, and that they are slowly, gradually but steadily improving, while the decisions of the third con- gress of the C. I. are being loyally carried out. The transformation of the old type of the European parlia- mentary party—which in fact was re- formist and merely slightly tinged with a revolutionary color—into a new type of party, into a really revo- lutionary, really Communist party, is an exceedingly difficult matter. The example of France illustrates this dif- ficulty best of all. To modify the type of party work in every day life, to secure that the party becomes the vanguard of the revolutionary prole- tariat, without becoming estranged from the masses, but coming continu- ally into closer contact with them— all this is the most difficult, but the most necessary work, If the Euro- pean Communists, for the purpose of this radical internal profound modi- fication of the whole structure and of the whole work of their parties, fail to make use of that (probably very unionism are here drawn in _ lines clear and bold—the “trade unionism” of the Anglo-Saxon countries which limited its action to an ideology con- fined to narrow economic problems; the “socialist unionism” of the Ger- man type; which—though visioning a new society in conformity with the ideal of the pre-war socialist parties, believed the traitorous leaders of the Second International who became “socialist patriots” and accepted the reformist illusion that the new society could be won gradually by extending democratic reforms inside capitalism without the necessity of its revolu- tionary overthrowal; and, thirdly, the “anarcho-syndicalism” which was an idealistic reaction both to conserv- ative economic unionism and to the reformist gradualism of the socialist unions. This last form particularly appeared in the Latin countries. The birth and organizational basis of the International Federation of Trade Unions are given, together with an extensive and brilliant analysis of the actions and tendencies of this, the Amsterdam International, in the face of the tremendous upheavals taking place thruout the world since the war. The great sympathy and patience with which the Communists regard the backward masses, slowly but surely being forced on by capitalist economy into revolutionary’ situations, are brief) interval between the periods of the particular intensification of the revolutionary combats which many capitalist countries of Europe and America passed thru in 1921 and at the beginning of 1922, this will consti- tute a very great crime on their part. Happily there is no reason to be anx- ious in this regard. The noiseless, unassuming, deliberate, unhasting but profound work of constructing real Communist parties in Hurope and in America, real revolutionary van- guards of the proletariat, has been commenced, and this work is now go- ing on. The political lessons to be derived from the observation of even such a trivial matter as fox hunting prove not to be entirely without use: on the one hand excessive caution leads to errors. On the other hand we must not forget that by substituting for a sober estimation of the position mere “emotion” or waving of small red flags, one commits irretrievable errors and can even meet with a complete wreck, and that under circumstances where, altho the difficulties be indeed great, such a disaster is by no means unavoidable. Paul Levi now desires to render special service to the bourgeoisie— and consequently to its agents, the Second and Second and a Half Inter- nationals — by publishing precisely those works of Rosa Luxemburg in which she was wrong. To this we reply with two lines of a good Russian proverb: It sometimes happens to eagles that they descend lower than poultry, but poultry never succeed in mounting. as high as eagles. Rosa Luxemburg has committed errors in the question of the independence of Poland; she made mistakes in 1903 in the estimation of Menshevism; she has been in error as regards the the- ory of the accumulation of capital; she was mistaken when, in July, 1914, along with Plekanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky and others, she backed the union of the Bolsheviks with the Men- sheviks; she also made blunders in her wrings in prison during 1918 (aft- ter she had left prison, at the end of 1918 and at the beginning of 1919 she rectified a great portion of her blun- ders). But notwithstanding these er- rors of hers, she was and remains an eagle; and not only will her memory always be treasured by the Commun- ists of the whole world, but her biog- raphy and the full collection of her works (over the publication of which the German Communists are taking an unaccountably long time, which can only be partly attributed to the unheard of number of victims in their heavy struggle) will constitute the most useful lessons for the education of many generations of Communists thruout the world. “German Social- shown in the near tenderness Losov- sky exhibits toward the war-weary working classes at the end of the im- perialist butchery. The Russian revolution brought to birth a new kind of unionism, a “Com- munist unionism” and Losovsky in- timately portrays the phenomenal growth of this ideological current in the world’s trade union movement, its relation to the other currents of the movement in the stormy years since the renaissance of union organ- ization after the war, and the contest in the efforts of the Red International of Labor Unions (the Profintern) to win the millions of workers from the reformism of the Amsterdam Inter- national to the Communist program of millitant class struggle. “No one can tell how long it will take,” says Losovsky, “until we will win over this numerically gigantic mass. . .. We are present at the very beginning of the dissolution of the system of exploitation which has been built up for centuries.... But one thing is clear; the more objective- ly we estimate the relation of forces outside and inside the working class, the sooner will humanity arrive at the developed form of Communist socie- ty.” No worker who aspires to under- stand the labor movement can do without this book, the first and only i book of its kind. i Democracy, after the 4th of August, 1914, has become a stinking corpse”’— it is with this quotation of Rosa Lux- emburg that her name will recorded in the history of the workers’ move- ment of the whole world. And in the backyard of the workers’ movement, on the rubbish heap, the poultry of the type of Paul Levi, Scheidemann and of this whole fraternity will of course cackle triumphantly over the errors of the great Communist wom- an. Everything in its right place. As regards Serrati, the Italian Com- munists, who have created a party of the revolutionary proletariat in Italy, will now have an instructive model of Menshevism to put before the eyes of the working masses. Not at one stroke, not without many repeated in- structive lessons, will the useful warning effect of this example make .- itself felt, but it will inevitably do so. Not to alienate oneself from the masses; not to lose patience in the difficult work of practical exposure of all the Serratis before the advanced workers; not to accept the solution which is at once too easy and most dangerous; where Serrati says: A “to repeat “minus A”; to educate the masses continually to a revolutionary world outlook and to revolutionary action; to make a practical use also of the magnificent (though dearly bought) instructive lessons afforded by Fascism—this done, and the vic- tory for Italian Communism is se- cured. Levi and Serrati are not character- istic of themselves, but constitute the modern sample of the extreme left wing of petty bourgeois democracy, of “their” camp, of the camp of the international capitalists who are fight- ing against us. “Their” camp, without distinction from Gompers to Serrati, is rubbing its hands with malicious joy or shed- ding crocodile’s tears over our retreat, over our “descent,” over our new ece- nomic policy. They are welcome to their mali- cious joy. Let them carry on their clown-like antics. Everything in its right place. But we must neither abandon ourselves to illusions nor to faint-heartedness, Let us not be afraid to acknowledge our errors nor afraid of the repeated work of rectify- ing them—and we shall reach the summit. The cause of the interna ttonal bloc from Gompers to Serrat§ is a lost cause, GRIGER & NOVAK GENTS FURNISHING and MERCHANT TAILORS UNION MERCHANDISE 1934 W. CHICAGO AVENUE (Cor. Winchester) Phone Humboldt 2707