The Second Congress: Work in the Trade Unions

As I explained in my previous post, the significant events that had taken place after the First Congress of the Communist International had been held (in 1919) meant that, at the Second Congress (in 1920), discussions needed to be had on a range of tactical questions. 

In this post I have done my best to summarise the resolutions agreed on one of the key areas of work for any workers' International - the trade unions. While some of this advice is perhaps more specific to the conditions of the time, much is still very useful guidance for revolutionary trade unionists today.

WORK IN THE TRADE UNIONS

In my last summary post, I referred to advice on trade union work contained in the ‘Manifesto of the Second World Congress’ and a separate letter “To the Trade Unions of All Countries” agreed by the Congress. 

That letter had given guidance to revolutionary workers on how to take on trade union leaderships that sought to sabotage the movement - not by “deserting the mass organisations and setting up their own unions" but by "active struggle within them and the expulsion from them of the treacherous scab leaders”. The letter pointed to the “factory committees”, based on shopfloor organisation, as the key arena for Communist trade unionists to work in, in order to organise against the old leaders. 

These points were taken up and expanded upon in a further Congress resolution, drawn up in three sections, on “The Trade Union Movement, Factory Committees and the Third International”, which was agreed on 5 August 1920.

Section I

Going beyond ‘craft narrowness’

The resolution started by explaining how “the trade unions were created by the working class during the period of the peaceful development of capitalism as organisations through which the workers struggled to increase the value of the labour on the labour market and improve working conditions”. 

From the outset, Marxists had attempted to bring the unions into the wider political struggle for socialism. However, the early unions had chiefly organised the skilled and better-paid sections of the working class and this tended to limit their political outlook with a “craft narrowness”. As a result, their bureaucratic leaders had “abandoned struggle with the bosses in favour of a programme of maintaining peace and agreement with the capitalists at any price”. During the war, most of them had worked on behalf of their respective national bourgeois, holding back their members to assist the ‘war effort’.

However, the post-war economic crisis - especially its rocketing prices and housing shortages - had drawn broader layers of less skilled workers into the unions in order to defend their livelihoods. This process had been accelerated by the growing number of women and young workers that had been added to the workforce during the war years.

As para (2) of the resolution puts it: “In all the capitalist countries there is a tremendous increase in trade-union membership. Trade unions now organise the broad masses and not just the advanced section of the proletariat. The masses join the unions hoping to use them as a weapon in their struggle. The sharpening class contradictions are forcing the trade unions to organise the strikes at present sweeping in a great wave across the capitalist world and constantly interrupting the process of capitalist production and exchange”.

But even workers in unions that had successfully won wage increases soon realised that their hard won gains were quickly wiped out by further price rises. This was helping to convince some to reach the revolutionary conclusion that, to win lasting gains, capitalism itself must be overthrown. 

Overcoming the union bureaucracy 

As para (3) explained: “The old trade-union bureaucracy and the old forms of trade-union organisation are obstructing this change in every possible way. The old trade-union bureaucracy is prepared to go to any lengths to preserve the trade unions as organisations of the labour aristocracy; … it seeks to introduce political deals and a policy of long-term treaties in their place, even though, in view of the incredible price rises, such measures have lost all meaning”. 

The traditional division of union membership into different unions for different trades was also helping the bureaucracy to set one group of workers against another, instead of encouraging a strong, generalised, movement. As para (3) concludes: “To sum up, the union bureaucracy breaks down the powerful river of the workers' movement into small streams, substituting partial, reformist demands for the general revolutionary aims of the movement, and generally hindering the transformation of proletarian struggle into a revolutionary struggle for the destruction of capitalism”.

Be the most effective trade unionists

The Congress resolved in para (4) that, in response to these developments, “the Communists in all countries must join the unions in order to develop them into bodies consciously struggling for the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of Communism. They must take the initiative in creating trade unions where none exist”. 

It added that “voluntary withdrawals from the union movement and artificial attempts to create special unions represent a great danger to the Communist movement. Such actions threaten to isolate the most politically advanced and class-conscious workers from the masses who are sympathetic to communist ideas; they threaten to leave the masses to their opportunist leaders, thus playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie”.

The rest of para (4) provides guidance which is still important for revolutionary trade unionists to understand today - that the working class as a whole needs to learn through its own experience and struggle of the need to fight for socialist change: “The irresolution of the working class, its confusion over theory, its susceptibility to the arguments of the opportunist leaders can be overcome only in the course of a developing struggle. The broadest layers of the proletariat have to understand through their own experiences - through their own victories and defeats - that it is objectively impossible to achieve human conditions of life under the capitalist system”. 

Genuine socialists needed to be struggling alongside those workers, gaining their respect, developing workplace representatives, and helping them to draw those revolutionary conclusions: “The advanced working-class Communists have to learn not only to introduce Communist ideas to workers participating in economic struggles, but to establish themselves as the most effective leaders of the economic struggle in the trade unions. This is the only way the trade unions can be rid of their opportunist leaders … only thus can they eliminate the bureaucracy which is cut off from the masses, replacing it with an apparatus of factory representatives and leaving only the most essential functions to the centre.”

Sometimes a split might be necessary 

Both in this resolution, and in the others mentioned at the start, the general strategic line against forming separate ‘red’ unions is clear. However, the resolution did raise the possibility that a move to split away workers from an existing union might be necessary if there were “exceptional acts of violence on the part of the union bureaucracy (such as the dissolution of revolutionary local union sections by the opportunist centres), or by its adopting a narrow exclusionist policy of closing the organisation to the broad masses of less skilled workers”. 

It warned, however, in the next paragraph (5) that “even if a split proves necessary it must be carried into effect only when the Communists have succeeded - through consistent struggle against the opportunist leaders and their tactics and by active participation in the economic struggle - in convincing the broad masses of workers that the split is being undertaken not for the sake of some distant revolutionary aims which they do not yet understand, but for the sake of the most immediate and concrete interests of the working class and the development of its economic struggle. Should a split be necessary, Communist tactics must be constantly and carefully analysed to ensure that the split does not lead to the isolation of the Communists from the working masses”. 

The resolution noted in para (6) that a split of a more militant wing away from the old opportunist union organisations had already taken place in America. In a situation such as that, “Communists must support the revolutionary unions, helping them to overcome their syndicalist prejudices and accept a Communist platform”. Of course, they should also support every effort made by shopfloor organisations - factory or shop stewards’ committees for example - to oppose the failings of the trade union bureaucracy.

However, the resolution again emphasised that “support for revolutionary trade unions must not lead Communists to leave opportunist trade unions which are in a state of ferment and moving towards class struggle” but instead encourage the direction of those mass organisations towards united revolutionary struggle against capitalism.

Paragraph (7) emphasised that the economic crisis meant that workers in struggle over economic issues were likely to transform those struggles into directly political ones more rapidly than would be the case in a more stable period for capitalism. Communists needed to emphasise the need for overthrowing capitalism, and building a socialist society, to win lasting gains. The Party needed to have organised ‘fractions’ [caucuses] in “every union and every factory committee, and use them to acquire theoretical and organisational leadership in the trade union movement”.

Section II

Build Factory Committees!

The second section of the resolution concentrated on the importance of developing “factory committees” as organisations aimed at “exercising control over production” in their workplaces. These must not be restricted to just Party members and supporters but “should organise all workers around the issues raised by the economic crisis.” They should be broad mass organisations, “elected by all the workers of the enterprises concerned”.

The strategy set out in the opening paragraphs of this second section of the resolution was to build factory committees as a way to prevent the bosses’ sabotage of production in pursuit of profit - such as failing to invest or threatening to close plants, in order to demand yet more from their already exploited workforce. 

The committees’ immediate aim should therefore be a defensive struggle to seek to establish an element of workers’ control to counter the capitalists’ attacks. But these attacks aren't down to the whim of an individual ‘bad boss', they are an inevitable consequence of the “relentless decline of capitalism”. Therefore, “the factory committees of individual factories will soon be confronted with the need to establish workers' control over entire branches of industry and over industry as a whole. And since the bourgeoisie and the capitalist government will take strong measures against any attempt by the workers to control raw material supplies to the factories and the financial operation of the factory owners, the struggle for workers' control leads to the struggle for proletarian power” (para 3).

Para (4) explained that agitation for factory committees should be aimed at the broad masses, including the middle class layers being drawn into the working class, focusing on the immediate key issues of concern (the resolution highlights fuel shortages and the transport crisis for example). It should be done in a way that makes clear that the organised workers are demanding workers' control of industry and production to prevent the speculation, inflation and chaos being inflicted on the masses by the bosses.

But build Trade Unions too!

However, para (5) stressed that “factory committees cannot replace the trade unions”. The two had different characters and roles. Factory committees would start to link up beyond individual workplaces and create their own national apparatus and leadership only in the course of ongoing struggle. But “trade unions are already centralised and militant bodies; they do not, however, involve such wide masses of workers as the factory committees”.

It continued, “... These different functions of the factory committees and the trade unions reflect the historical development of the social revolution. The trade unions organise the working masses on a national scale for the struggle around demands for wage increases and shorter hours. The factory committees organise the fight to overcome the economic crisis and establish workers' control over production; all the workers in an enterprise participate, but their struggle only gradually assumes a national character”. 

In terms of Communist tactics, the resolution advised that factory committees should not be automatically subsumed into factory trade union branches at first but only when the unions start to become transformed themselves - therefore offering alternative leadership while the union bureaucracy maintains its hold on union branches. But, while encouraging the development of both forms of organisation, Communists should stress the importance of building the Party above all, to provide a clear leadership able to guide the workers' organisations to victory through a socialist transformation of society. 

Trade Unions’ role in a planned economy 

The final paragraph of this section (para 7) emphasised that the struggles carried out by workers through the trade unions and factory committees will be essential preparation for those mass organisations to play their vital role in a future planned economy: “Trade unions, organised as production unions, assisted by factory committees and the factory cells, will inform the working masses of current production needs, recommend the more experienced workers for leading positions in the administration of production, control the work of technical specialists and, along with representatives of the workers' power, draw up and carry out a plan of socialist economic construction”.

Section III

For International Militant Trade Union Organisation

The short final section of the Trade Union resolution raised the need for genuine international solidarity across the trade union movement. It noted that international links had, out of necessity, always been a feature of union organisation because of the need to try and prevent the bosses' using overseas labour to break strikes.

However, the official trade union international bodies had been largely bureaucratic ones, more interested in collecting statistics and making financial appeals than organising joint international struggle in defence of revolutionary workers’ movements. 

Having played a treacherous pro-imperialist role during the First World War, trade union bureaucrats like Jouhaux in France were reviving an ‘International Federation of Trade Unions' - the so-called ‘Amsterdam International’ - but on the basis of securing deals with the bosses, not on militant international struggle. In other words, they were becoming the trade union equivalent of the bankrupt “Second International” of reformist political parties. What was needed was a trade union equivalent to the Communist International!

Congress therefore resolved that “in all countries Communist workers who are members of trade unions must strive to create an international militant front of trade unions. The question now is not one of financial assistance during strikes, but of the trade unions and the organisations of the broadest masses coming to the defence of any working class that is threatened, and preventing the bourgeoisies of their countries from aiding the bourgeoisie which is in conflict with its working class”. 

The resolution concluded that, “in every country the economic struggle of the proletariat is becoming more revolutionary all the time. Therefore the trade unions must consciously use all their strength to support any revolutionary struggle in their own and in other countries. For this purpose, they must work towards the greatest possible centralisation on a national and also on an international level - by joining the Communist International* and forming a united army whose various sections support one another in their joint struggle.”

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*Trade union affiliation to the Third International is set out in Statute 14 of the ‘Statutes of the Communist International’ agreed by the Congress, which I will summarise in another post. 

However, my next post will take up two further important tactical issues that were discussed by the Second Congress: (1) the attitude to take to work in parliament and elections; and (2) ‘when and under what conditions soviets should be formed’.