Anarchist Studies 17.

2 2009

ISSN 0967 3393

www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/

The syndicalist encounter with Bolshevism

Reiner Tosstorff
Translated by Norry LaPorte

ABSTRACT
The Russian Revolution of 1917 represented a great opportunity for the international Left but also exacerbated tensions between those who argued for revolution from below via industrial action and those who supported the Leninist conception of the vanguard party. This article draws from previously secret Soviet archive material and focuses on the dialogues and tensions between organs of the nascent Bolshevik state and foreign syndicalist organisations post-1917 and the subsequent emergence of a distinctive anarcho-syndicalist current.
Keywords syndicalism, industrial associations, Bolshevism, Comintern, Profintern, the trade union question, ideological anarchism

This article is about the conflictual relationship of non-Russian syndicalist organisations with Bolshevism and the Communist International after the October Revolution.1 The term syndicalism is defined as covering all of the tendencies whose self-perception gave precedence to the revolutionary trade union over the party, if not its complete replacement. This rather dismissive relationship to the organisational form of the party represented its main point of difference with the emergent communist movement. This does not mean that, aside from this main characteristic, there were not strong differences of opinion in syndicalist ranks. This could be assumed from the contemporary political language, which differentiated between Industrialists, Unionists and the actual Syndicalists. In this way, one could differentiate between organisations in the craft trade union tradition of the French CGT (Confdration Gnrale du Travail), industrial unions like the North

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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) organisations2 after the example of the German industrial unions, to say nothing of the more exotic examples like supporters of the now forgotten Daniel DeLeon, who attributed to industrial associations equal rights alongside the party. These organisational differences may have influenced the relationships that particular groups forged with Bolshevism. Yet they were only a subordinate factor in the general feud about the main issue of whether trade union or party had priority in the class war. This article will not, however, deal with the complicated question of the anarchists who are often wrongly equated with syndicalists relationship to the October Revolution, since they did not belong to such trade union organisations.3 Indeed, there were significant anarchist tendencies which strongly rejected work in the trade unions as, by their nature, they inclined to reformism. Before the First World War, the self designation above all in Romance languages was simply syndicalist4, which meant nothing more other than trade union movement; perhaps for clarity, the adjective revolutionary was then added. Anarcho-syndicalism is then the later specific nexus of anarchism and syndicalism as first produced in the controversy about the Bolshevik revolution. In summary, this article deals with revolutionary trade union associations which were self-sufficient and represented an industrial strategy, from wage struggles to the general strike. They were united in strident criticism of parliamentarianism and the bureaucratisation of the traditional trade unions; in other words, with what we today would call rejection of indirect representation.5 This portrait of revolutionary unions has its main emphasis in southern Europe. Here, syndicalism dominated the trade-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 orthodox Marxismof 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 international debates of the Bolshevik faction. For, apart from some anarchists, it was the ultra-Left Bolsheviks around Bogdanov and Lunacharsky who tried to make known the ideas of West European syndicalism to Russian workers and who, in Lenins eyes, appeared particularly deviationist.6 This negative attitude changed with the First World 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 those forces supporting the war were a minority. The result was that Bolshevism came into contact with syndicalist groupings in the anti-war Left (Zimmerwald and Kienthal). The outstanding example of this syndicalist, anti-war Left was produced in France with the grouping around the journal La Vie Ouvrire inside the CGT. Its editorial circle (of whom Pierre Monatte and Alfred Rosmer7 are particularly worthy of mention) worked closely with Russian revolutionaries in exile in France (around the journal Nashe Slovo). Appropriately, two of them, Leon Trotsky and, above all, Solomon Dridzo (who was later known by the pseudonym he used in the Russian movement, Alexander Lozovsky) played an important part in the future discussions between syndicalists and communists. The latter could even point to his own period of activity in the CGT before the First World War.8 In addition, after the October Revolution the Bolsheviks also directed their proclamations for the foundation of the Communist International to groupings from the syndicalist sphere and called for their participation.9 Their call fell on fertile soil. In the years 1918 and 1919, the vast majority responded positively to the news from Russia. Numerous examples can be found from across the world. At the beginning 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 the Russian Revolution under the title Red Dawn, which found a wide circulation. The Argentinean trade union federation FORA (Federacin Obrera Regional Argentina) complemented its name to include the adjective communist in order to show its solidarity with the Bolsheviks (i.e. was now known as FORA-C). At the end of 1918, the central organ of the Spanish CNT (Confederacin 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 of crime [] 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 more surprising as, in one way or another, many syndicalists came from an anarchist background or were under this type of influence; to them, all sorts of Marxist politics were treated with suspicion. The endorsements can be explained using a statement by the former Wobbly turned Communist, James P. Cannon, speaking decades later to the historian Theodor Draper about his discussion in 1919 with the co-founder of 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 thats what he believed in.11 The Bolsheviks had destroyed the capitalist state and thereby shown that revolution was possible; by contrast, social democracy only spoke about socialism. This revolution had taken place against bourgeois parliamentarianism and under the influence of the soviets, the workers councils. It was, therefore, a revolution which had nothing to do with politicians. It took only one step to identify the soviets with trade unions, the works syndicates. This argument is found in numerous contemporary syndicalist statements. In this early period there was no possibility for the syndicalists to familiarise themselves systematically with the reality of Bolshevik power. Although the invitation had been extended, no syndicalists found their way to the founding congress of the Comintern in March 1919. Visiting Russia was first practically possible when the blockade of the country became ineffective in the spring of 1920 with the Bolshevik victory in the civil war. Before this, however, one question made itself conspicuous, anticipating future confrontations: the trade union question. Where communist parties were formed, they were normally created out of social democratic parties. Their members belonged 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-union associations. The discussion had great significance in Germany, for example. One of the reasons for this was the role played by the Bolsheviks representative, Karl Radek. Bolstered by the authority of the Russian party, he attempted to implement socalled cell building inside the Social Democratic-led trade unions. The nascent KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands), which was still trying to win a mass basis of support, carried out a party split in a manner leading to confrontation with its syndicalist tendency. It was not by chance that the syndicalist FAUD (Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands) went from a position of sympathy to a position of confrontation with communism. Another example would be Sweden. In contrast to other countries in which communist parties were founded more slowly (and perhaps it was no coincidence where syndicalists were much stronger) the early quarrel over the trade union question did not take place. At the same time a further question emerged: that of the leading role of the party. What this meant was whether a political party had the right to intervene in trade-union affairs, even imposing its political line on the trade unions through its members factional activity.
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In any case, from the positive views sketched above, a whole series of syndicalist organisations such as the Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI), the CNT, the British Shop Stewards and the revolutionary minority in the CGT formally declared expressions of interest in the Comintern and therefore sent delegates to the Cominterns second congress in the summer of 1920. Others sent at least observers, who at the same time were furnished with the task of a sort of fact-finding mission about the situation in Russia. Some syndicalist activists, however, made their way on their own initiative, such as the Japanese Wobbly Taro Yoshiharo, or Bertho Lepetit and Marcel Vergeat, 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 the syndicalists, for the first time since the end of the war, a relatively representative gathering in Moscow. Despite much effort in Western Europe, this had not taken place since the first gathering, which took place in London in 1913 (if one discounts the consultation in Spanish El Ferrol in 1915, which was, in any case, not representative). The sending of delegates by two syndicalist organisations to the re-foundation congress of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), which was held in Amsterdam in July and August 1919, was even less of a success.12 As a concession to the oppositional tendency during the war this was to become comprehensive in membership, i.e. it would include syndicalists. There was even talk of the inclusion of Russian trade unions. But the Russians, who were in the midst of civil war and the blockade, 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 tradeunion international. Both syndicalist organisations from Germany and Holland that participated reached a similar conclusion about the uselessness of the IFTU from a revolutionary perspective.13 It was against this background that syndicalist representatives met in Moscow in the summer of 1920. Now at the second congress of the Comintern (23 July-7 August), the syndicalists found out that their theories and strategies were incompatible with the Bolshevik understanding of the revolutionary party, although Bolshevik leaders, like Trotsky, insisted that this was not very different from the syndicalist term the active minority. Indeed, while the Bolsheviks stressed the necessity of political action as the lever to overthrow capitalist society, the syndicalists stressed economic and industrial means. At the same time, two other delegations also stayed in Moscow, who represented the left wing of the IFTU or, more precisely, the Italian Trade Union Federation and the British TUC (Trade Union Congress). In June they had begun
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discussions with the Comintern leadership and representatives of the Russian trade unions. It was decided to set up an alternative to the Amsterdam International, but it was initially left open whether this should be political referring to the leadership of the IFTU and its majority line or organised directly (a separate revolutionary trade-union international). Now discussions with the syndicalists began in order to include them in a manner firming up the intended challenge to the IFTU. Immediately a whole series of theoretical and practical differences were articulated. According to the leading Soviet negotiator and future leader of the RILU (Red International of Labour Unions), Alexander Lozovsky, they dealt with the following topics: the relationship between the economy and politics; the necessity of the revolutionary party; the relationship to the Comintern; the question of the form of state (workers councils); and, finally, the problem of a split-off from, or factional work (permeation14) in, the reformist trade unions.15 On 15 July when, after long, difficult discussions, an agreement was signed calling for the foundation of the Provisional International Trade Union Council, it carried only the signatures of the Russians, the Yugoslavs, the Italians, the Georgians, the Bulgarians, the French 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 tendencies of which he represented the most pro-communist, grouped around the newspaper La Vie ouvrire. And, although the CNT had actually been very critical of this move, ngel Pestaa signed, as he felt tied by the decision to join taken at the previous years CNT congress. All of the other syndicalists refused to sign. In several rather ambiguous formulations, the founding declaration expressed the necessity of removing opportunists from the trade-union movement, forming revolutionary 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 revolutionising the trade-union movement. After vociferous discussion it was finally possible to get the agreement of all the syndicalists, from the Shop Stewards through the USI whose leader, Armando Borghi, did not arrive until very late in the proceedings to Augustin Souchy of the FAUD. The basis for co-operation was now not the acceptance of the entire founding declaration, but only agreement on the principle of revolutionary class struggle. Finally, however, this support remained rather uncertain and unclear, and was also to form the basis of future differences of opinion and confrontation, especially between the Russians and Souchy. He was accused by them of deception, in that he had not understood his views in the discussion in
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Moscow as a formal obligation to actually support such a Trade Union Council back in Germany. At the end of August there was also a dispute when all of the syndicalists, apart from Rosmer, refused to sign a resolution which spoke of the necessity of organising bureaus of the Trade Union Council in the different countries in co-operation with the communist parties. In the end the Bolsheviks, using these means, could appoint the International Trade Union Council as the organisational force for a new trade union international. After many postponements, the founding congress was to be held at the beginning of July 1921 in Moscow. Most syndicalist organisations now abstained from participating in the preparations for the congress. Instead, they met in Berlin in the second half of December 1920. Those present were representatives of the IWW, the Shop Stewards, the Dutch and Swedish Syndicalists, the minority in the CGT and FORA-Comunista , and included Russian observers (from the Bolshevik-led trade unions). This conference which is sometimes also known as a pre-conference for a yet to be organised proper conference was characterised by great differences of opinion; not only between the Russian trade union representatives and all of the others, but also among the syndicalists. Some, above all the Swedish 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 the organisation 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 communist parties when there were common demands, and instead of dictatorship of the working class the adoption of the slogan domination of the working class. All syndicalists 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 Council in Moscow, as had actually been agreed. Because of these developments, discussions about the Trade Union Council and about co-operation with the communist parties shifted to the national organisations. In this regard, another factor emerged. In the summer of 1920, the syndicalist delegates had gone to Moscow not only to participate in the Comintern congress, but also to gather information about the actual situation in Russia. After their return they published reports; ironically, the most critical of them, written by Borghi and Pestaa, 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 of Bolshevik Russia. It was not just a question of the catastrophic economic situation; worse still, there was criticism of the political situation, the dictatorship, the oppresAnarchist Studies 17.2

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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 was strengthened; that is, those syndicalists who were, in one way or another, in contact with groups that had an affinity to anarchism and which now saw their earlier suspicions of Marxism confirmed. Where there were relatively unhindered conditions for political discussion, the anarchists made an impact such as in the campaign of the French Anarchists inside the CGT-minority against those with a pro-communist position, and in the discussions in the FAUD. While contingent factors played their part, above all in the selection of delegates, with the exception of the FAUD all of them decided to participate in the founding congress of the future RILU. However, the participating organisations, with all their differences emphasised, decided to mandate 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 was certainly no coincidence; nor was it only the result of decades of disagreement between Marxists and anarchists. It was in Germany that the confrontation over revolutionary trade union tactics had gone furthest, that is the feud over working within the reformist mass organisations or setting up separate revolutionary unions. In the Ruhr, the FAUD had suffered badly from pro-communist splits and had in these very months experienced another defection that of the seamen. From the beginning, the founding congress of the Red International of Labour Unions16 (or, by its Russian acronym, Profintern) which met in Moscow from 3 until 19 July 192117 was dominated by clashes between the Bolsheviks, supported by other communist delegates, and the syndicalists. This began with the question of mandates. Who was representative? Were delegates from communist minorities in the trade unions which belonged to the Amsterdam International also reformist, as was asserted by many if not all of the syndicalists? And how was the strength of these factions determined? Delegates took offence that the delegates from nonRussian republics represented overwhelmingly agrarian countries, or represented nothing other than a part of Russia. At the same time the syndicalist movement in a whole host of countries was seriously divided, and therefore appeared with a number of organisations that attributed to themselves very generous membership numbers. However, the Bolsheviks succeeded in imposing a framework for determining the number of votes by implementing a proposal by Lozovky, the main organiser of the congress for the Trade Union Council, to the party leadership in April. This was the method by which the Second International had already determined the number of votes at their congresses. Comprehensive delegations, to which a certain number of
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votes were allocated, were formed for each country, which then had to divide up the number among the competing organisations on the basis of their individual strength. While these procedures undoubtedly showed aspects of manipulation, it saved the Communists the misfortune of finding themselves in the minority. If the dispute over mandates caused a bad atmosphere, then the highpoint of this quarrel became the relationship between the Comintern and the future RILU. While two prominent syndicalists, Alfred Rosmer and Tom Mann on behalf of the Trade Union Congress proposed a so-called organic (i.e. permanent) link in the form of mutual representation on the respective leadership bodies, almost all other syndicalists rebelled against this idea and voiced their support for organisational independence.18 This opposition was expressed most strongly by the majority of the French delegation, which became the spokesman of the syndicalist minority and submitted a counter-proposal. Not all syndicalists believed that the trade unions should always be the main organisations of the class struggle. They acknowledged that it would depend on historical developments within a concrete environment. But where there were strong syndicalist traditions the party would be subordinate or, at best, of the same ranking; but certainly never 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 for Rosmers proposal: the resolution was not about subordination, but recognised the independent existence of the trade unions and provided only for close coordination. This support came mainly from the Spanish and a minority in the French delegation. Rosmers resolution passed with 287 votes, against 37 for the counter-resolution. While this point on the agenda extended over five of the seventeen sessions, there was a short continuation with the agenda item tactics. On this issue a formal discussion developed on the historical status of revolutionary syndicalism. The Spaniard Nin regarded its development as a positive synthesis of Marx and Proudhon, and the Frenchman Michel stated concisely that it was self-sufficient. They were severely opposed by the Bulgarian Dimitrov, who presented Marxist orthodoxy in the sense of severe criticism of a deviation. In contrast, Lozovsky argued in the manner typical of the Bolsheviks courting of syndicalism. In the past, syndicalism had significance as a revolutionary answer to opportunism; therefore, in its time, it had been superior. Now, however, it would no longer be in a position to give the correct answer to the question of revolutionary strategy. The syndicalists would now have to form a bloc with the Communists for the formation of a revolutionary mass party, especially where they had mass influence (and where the old,
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pre-war social democracy had been weak and completely reformist). As a concession, Lozovsky proposed deleting a sentence in the statutes, which spoke of ideological leadership over the RILU by the Comintern. Syndicalists like Nin and others declared this to be unacceptable. It also brought Lozovsky up against persistent resistance 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 again became heated with the agenda point organisation, as this was about forming cells in the reformist, mass-based trade unions instead of founding separate revolutionary unions. However, it was obvious that many of the syndicalists had already exhausted their energy with the earlier discussions. The French, in particular, held back, and left the last appearances of the opposition to the representatives of the German Unionists, the delegates of the IWW, and a Canadian organisation close to them, as well as some other small associations. It is easy to understand why they behaved so decisively. The Communists stood for a united trade union organisation. Thus, they were opposed to splitting-off and leaving the existing trade unions. They even argued for dissolving the separate revolutionary unions and for joining the existing mass organisations, despite their reformism. Revolutionary cells should be created in them. Therefore, the resolution on organisational questions, which concerned itself with the situation in a whole series of countries, provided for the dissolution or at least strict limitation of the independent unions. While this exhausted the scheduled agenda, toward the end another question surfaced which, until then, had only been discussed by a few delegates on a purely informal basis outside of the official course of the congress: the fate of the Russian anarchists. After the Kronstadt uprising four months earlier, and the introduction afterwards of the New Economic Policy, the Bolsheviks oppression of their left-wing critics had been stepped up through a series of arrests in March. The anarchists imprisoned in Moscow, who had learned about the presence of the syndicalist delegates from abroad, decided in June to begin a hunger strike in order to force their release or, at least, legal proceedings. With the help of some Anarchists, such as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and Alexander Schapiro, who remained at large, they took up contacts with the foreign visitors many of whom had a political past in organised anarchism. Intensive discussions began with the Bolshevik authorities, which, by tacit agreement, were not carried out in public. After the congress, this led to the release, then deportation, of most of them. However, on the last day of the congress, the Bolshevik leader Bukharin gave a speech on the counter-revolutionary
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role of the Russian Anarchists, especially the Makhno movement. Initially, the syndicalists were dumbfounded in their reaction; and it set off a great rebellion when the chairman, Lozovsky, refused to allow an answer from a Canadian delegate. Delegates stood on chairs singing the Internationale when Lozovsky endeavoured to speak. For several minutes the convention floor was not unlike the New York stock exchange with every one shouting, including spectators who rushed from their seats onto the convention floor itself.19 Finally, a French delegate, Henri Sirolle, was able to make a statement in the name of the syndicalist delegations. After some smaller points, this allowed the congress to end in greater accord, for example with the adoption of a message of greetings to the Russian workers and to Lenin. Why had the syndicalists remained so unsuccessful? The communist majority can certainly not be explained simply through manipulation of the delegates or their mandates. Undoubtedly the communists represented a significant tendency in the international workers movement. And the argument of some syndicalists that the communists, merely by their membership of the Amsterdam International, must already be reformist was not very convincing. That was not the view of most revolutionary workers who, at this time, came to communism. Just as unconvincing, however, was the ways in which the Bolsheviks raised the number of their mandates using delegates from all Soviet Republics. Possibly not all trade union delegates with party cards did represent what they claimed to represent. Yet, the main problem for the syndicalists, as has been shown, proved to be the disunity 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 interesting to note that, during the plenary meetings, not one of the syndicalist delegates posed the question of the objectives of revolutionary trade unions according to syndicalist theory: the future leadership of the socialist or collective economy. This question, which during the second congress of the Comintern still had had significance for Pestaa and Souchy, was only briefly raised by the Shop Steward leader, J. T. Murphy, in the commission on the statutes of the Red Trade Union 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 of the French, as the CGT congress was imminent and many leading members of the opposition had chosen to participate in it, instead of travelling to Moscow. In addition, behind the majority of the French delegation there was a secret pact, orchestrated by Victor Griffuelhes20, a formerly leading but now marginal veteran
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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 a heavy blow to the pure syndicalists and anarchists, effectively marginalising them).21 On top of that the delegate Michel Relenk, during the congress a hard-line opponent of the communist majority, was denounced by his co-delegates because, immediately after the congress, he had submitted curious offers to the Bolshevik leadership to argue the case for the adhesion to the RILU in France, changing his mind in exchange for financial support. And Victor Godonnche of the procommunist minority within the French delegation complained that he had had to represent a motion of the delegation majority in a commission, as the designated delegation 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; but in the end nothing came of it. An international syndicalist tendency in opposition to Moscow did not initially consolidate after this congress. Time was needed for this and it would depend on the discussions inside the organisations. On the other hand, the organisational question presented here which led to such loud outbreaks of opposition, in order to proclaim incompatibility with Bolshevism, were not of such significance to all syndicalists. The counter-move made by the Bolsheviks was to grant them an important concession at the second congress of the Red International of Labour Unions in November 192222, which showed their great interest in finally winning them over: they relinquished the organic connection with the Comintern. This helped, in particular, to win the new French revolutionary trade union federation, the CGTU (Confdration Gnrale du Travail Unitaire) which was founded after the split of the CGT at the end of 1921 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 a bloc with the Bolsheviks was, above all, success in struggle, which the Bolsheviks represented and which made them a magnet for every revolutionary. But something more should be added: the stress on the economic, industrial action, on workers control through factory councils and on the principle of industry-wide trade unions as against craft unions, all of which were at the core of the communist understanding of trade unionism. This, and similar ideas aimed at the implementation of revolutionary trade union policies, had been missing from the
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strategy of the Second International. Ironically, but not without reason, all this earned the Bolsheviks the reproach of being syndicalists from their social-democratic opponents (such as, for example, the Menshevik trade union expert Salomon Schwartz, and other trade union leaders who were active in the struggle against communism).23 To use the words of the most prominent syndicalist defector to communism, the Catalan Andrs Nin until his expulsion in 1928 a supporter of Trotsky and deputy to Lozovsky in the RILU leadership in Moscow in a letter to the Madrid Anarchist Mauro Bajatierra in September 1922:
Were there errors, injustices? Who doubts that? But who would have been able to avoid 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 it made mistakes and, not insignificantly, it would be absurd to condemn the Russian revolution for the same reasons.24

With knowledge of subsequent events, the fallacy of Nins evaluation is evident. But, for a complete balance sheet, several matters require our attention. A significant proportion of syndicalists who had advocated an alliance with the Bolsheviks were the first to rebel against the Bolshevisation and Stalinisation of the Communist International. To name only the best known of these rebels, they included Alfred Rosmer and Pierre Monatte in France and Andrs Nin and Joaqun Maurn in Spain. It was no coincidence that most of these former syndicalists had good relations with Trotsky who, due to his experiences during his stay in France from 1914 until 1916, was best able to evaluate the revolutionary potential of syndicalism. It is also easy to understand why these former syndicalists were in the first ranks of opposition communists from the mid-1920s. They belonged to a generation which was deeply shaped by the revolutionary wave at the end of the war, in which they had played a prominent role. Moreover, many of them were already politically active before the war, some of them in leading positions. They had joined the Bolsheviks because they represented revolution. When matters unquestionably changed they could not acquiesce. At the same time, however, it cannot be disputed that a number of former revolutionary syndicalists, above all those from subordinate positions and largely without lengthier experience of struggle, who belonged to a younger generation and were first active from the beginning of the 1920s, now earned their livelihoods from trade union (or, sometimes, party) positions thereby not so dissimilar from their
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reformist comrades and furnished Stalinism with a proletarian basis and veneer. Names that could be mentioned in this respect would be Gaston Monmousseau and Benot Frachon in France, Giuseppe Di Vittorio in Italy, and Jos Daz in Spain. However, these syndicalist traditions were pushed into the background in the course of the consolidation of Stalinism and, especially, by the course towards the Popular Front, which wanted to offer a more moderate image of communism. This can be seen in the official historiography of individual parties. Although many of the parties in Latin Europe (and, to some extent, Latin America) owed to syndicalism a good proportion of their mass basis as well as leadership corps, it was banished from the official historical image, and instead communisms social democratic roots were stressed. Even the last official history of the Comintern, which was produced by the communist parties in the 1970s, presented an analogous view at the level of the International. Finally, a few concluding words about the intransigent syndicalists. Without tracing these developments in detail, as the Canadian historian Wayne Thorpe has already done, we should mention that this subdivision of syndicalism now found its ideological basis in anarchism to an extent which had not been so determining for pre-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 the revolutionary trade unions in order to struggle against the pro-communist tendencies.) Revolutionary syndicalism became anarcho-syndicalism. At the end of 1922 the International Working Mens Association (IWMA) was founded. However, it never became an International based on mass influence (although one of the interesting often overlooked facets of its international impact was how it took hold in parts of Latin America).25 The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the absence of a mass basis in most countries; and on the other hand, the rather contemptuous attitude towards the International on the part of the only really mass-based organisation, the Spanish CNT, when, from 1936, this was in a position to play a revolutionary role but relinquished it. At the beginning of 1938, in a private letter following an IWMA conference on the Spanish revolution, Emma Goldman had to concede by looking back on the events surrounding RILUs foundation:
Yes, my dear, we have come to a point [where] I never expected to arrive: to have two opinions. One for the outside world and one for intimate comrades and friends. How I upbraided Bob Minor [in the summer of 1921, R. T.] when he refused to divulge to the public the horrors of the Soviet regime he disclosed to Sacha [Berkman, R. T.] and me. How naive and childish we were to believe that a
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revolution brought about by Anarchists will not impose measures wide of the mark of our ideas.26

This article summarises some of the results of my study, Profintern: Die Rote Gewerkschaftsinternationale 19201937, Paderborn 2004. In it are detailed references to the sources in archives and the secondary literature. In addition, the following studies should also be emphasised: Wayne Thorpe, The Workers Themselves. Revolutionary Syndicalism and International Labour, 19131923, Dordrecht, 1989, and the edited volume, Marcel van der Linden /Wayne Thorpe (eds.), Revolutionary Syndicalism. 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). Other recent publications cover the history of the POUM in the Spanish Civil War and aspects of the International Labour Organisation in the inter-war period. He is currently researching a biography of the German metal workers leader in the early years of the Weimar Republic, Robert Dissmann. Email Reiner.Tosstorff@uni-mainz.de

NOTES
1. On the fate of Russian Syndicalists and Anarchists, see Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Princeton, N.J., 1967, and the documentation based on sources from the Russian archives, V. V. Krivenki (ed.), Anarkhisty. Dokumenty i materialy 18831935gg., 2 vols., Moscow 1998/1999. 2. This refers to an organisational model aspiring to simultaneously perform the role of party and trade union. 3. For two case studies see: Santi Fedele, Una breve illusione. Gli anarchici italiani e la Russia sovietica 1917-1939, Mailand 1996; Jean Maitron, Le mouvement anarchiste en France. Vol. 2, De 1914 nos jours, Paris 1975, pp. 4155. 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. Writings of Alfred and Marguerite Rosmerof Revolutionary History (vol. 7, no. 4. 2000).

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8. Reiner Tosstorff, Alexander Lozovsky: Sketch of a Bolshevik Career, in Socialist History (34), (2009), pp. 1-19. 9. Milo Hjek/Hana Mejdrov, Die Entstehung der III. Internationale, Bremen 1998, p. 68. 10. Quoted in Antonio Bar, La CNT en los aos rojos (Del sindicalismo revolucionario al anarcosindicalismo, 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. The World of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 19131945, Aldershot 2006; Reiner Tosstorff, Kurze Geschichte des Internationalen Gewerkschaftsbundes. 85 Jahre 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 was isolated in the international movement. 14. I am using the historical term permeation here instead of entryism, a more familiar term, but invented and used much later than these events. But it is the term still usually used in the secondary sources on British syndicalism. 15. A. Losowski (=Lozovsky), Der Internationale Rat der Fach- und Industrieverbnde (Moskau gegen Amsterdam), Berlin 1920, p. 46. In this pamphlet, Lozovsky gives his account of the origins of the international trade union council. 16. During its early beginnings, mainly the name Red Trade Union International was used, 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 16 issues) which, afterwards, was published together with supplementary material as its proceedings. According to details in the RILU press and in reports published by participants, the bulletin appeared in the four languages used at the congress Russian, German, English and French. However, of the German edition, only the first seven issues can be found, so that we have to use a complete Russian copy. (The entire edition appeared under the title: 1yi mezhdunarodnyi kongress revoliutsionnykh, professionalnykh i proizvodstvennykh sojuzov. Stenograficheskyi otchet, Moscow 1921.) Additionally, the speeches to some of the points on the agenda as well as the resolutions were published as self-standing pamphlets. The material in the RILU archive on the first congress is very fragmentary. There are no complete stenographic records of all the sessions, nor are there complete records of delegates and the congress commission. An

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18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

additional set of sources are the depictions of the course of the congress by several delegates, especially the syndicalist minority, after their return home; these are a useful addition and, occasionally, a means of correcting the official proceedings. Rosmers speech is reprinted in the above mentioned special issue of Revolutionary History (note 7), pp. 67-80, together with a short introduction (The links between the Comintern and the RILU, pp. 60-66) by this author. George Cascaden, Shall Unionism Die?, n. p. n. d., p. 82. On this significant personality in the French workers movement, see Bruce Vandervoort, Victor Griffuelhes and French Syndicalism, 1895-1922, Baton Rouge 1996. For a detailed account of the ideological background, sympathetic to the anarchist and syndicalist 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, A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917-1945, Westport London, 2002, esp. pp. 113-146. Here too we must go back to the Russian version as the ostensibly published proceedings in German could not be located. See: II kongress Krasnogo Internatsionala Profsojuzov v Moskve. 19 noiabrja 2 dekabria 1922 goda, Moskau Petrograd 1923; Bjulleten II kongressa Krasnogo Internatsionala Profsojuzov v Moskve v Kolonnom zale Igo Doma Sojuzov 19-go noiabria 1922 goda, Moscow 1922. See the entry on the RILU by Salomon Schwartz, including quotes from the Action Programme and from the resolution on tactics at the founding congress, in: Ludwig Heyde (ed), Internationales Handwrterbuch, des Gewerkschaftswesens, 2 vols., Berlin 1931f, vol. 2, pp. 13481359, here p.1350. For Schwartz, an orthodox Marxist in the tradition of the Second International, this ideological adaptation was the price that the Bolsheviks had to pay for their co-operation with the Syndicalists. Lozovsky elucidated the aims and methods of the Red International of Labour Unions in his pamphlet: Das Aktionsprogramm der Roten Gewerkschafts-Internationale, Berlin 1921, 2nd edition 1922. Carta de Andreu Nin a Mauro Bajatierra, in: Revista de historia moderna y contemporanea, no. 1, 1980, pp. 2531. Vadim Dame, Zabytyi internatsional, 2 vols., Moscow, 2006/2007. 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 early days of the revolution, had originally been sympathetic to anarchism, but then became a Communist.

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