[GM105-106] Origins of the trade unions in Italy

Our press in 1946, which was Battaglia Comunista at that time, would reassert our line on the class trade union and on the patriotic CGIL, and criticise both the latter’s tendency not to renew membership cards, and its tendency to create new organisations which, after all, can’t be summoned out of thin air. But by now the party had already started to consider the possibility of new organisations arising “outside and against” the CGIL, although it was still opposed to a split which, in the absence of class struggles and given the predominance of the opportunist parties in the trade unions, wouldn’t have made much sense at that point.

The speaker went on to read a passage from an article entitled ‘Our Position inside the Trade Union’, from BC No. 24, dated 1-7 September: “Participation in the trade union for as long as the latter continues to represent the antagonism between capital and labour and, by uniting the labouring masses, allows them to conduct effective struggles to meet their demands, and for as long as, on the other hand, the workers as a whole, under the impetus and pressure of events, don’t gravitate towards other forms and means of struggle; but, in the meantime, there must be a clear demarcation between us and the union leadership, and open denunciation of the latter’s policy of dispersing the workers’ energy and supporting the State power (…) Splitting the union is to be rejected as is the formation of new organisations (…) for as long as circumstances don’t place such a question on the agenda.”

The idea that the union could be brought back to a class position merely by reforming the Confederation and by means of majority votes at meetings and Congresses was also criticised. The tactic of the step by step, progressive conquest of the union leadership by revolutionaries was thus ruled out and, consequently, also the prospect that communist internationalists and socialist-communists could co-exist in the leadership of the Confederation.

Depending on the relation of forces, the influence of the revolutionary political organisation, and on any initiatives being taken by the proletariat itself, communist internationalists will either limit themselves to denouncing the trade union leadership and holding it responsible for its actions, or else agitate for it to be got rid of altogether and replaced with a leadership prepared to fight along class lines, or, finally, they will participate in the formation of new types of organisation which arise from the struggle and in extending them to a national scale.

The communist struggle in the meantime aims to develop the class consciousness of the masses and to strengthen the political organisation, both of which are essential conditions for the rebirth of mass organisations of a classist nature, in whatever form they may take under the impact of developing circumstances.

The study then proceeded to look at the subject in more detail, in particular documenting the position our current took after the First World War towards the various workers’ defensive organisations. This research has undoubtedly been made easier thanks to a major party project of tracking down and reproducing old copies of the main organs of the P.C d’I press, which means we can now refer directly to Il Comunista and Il Lavoratore and deepen our knowledge of communist interventions in the class at that time.

For example, regarding the relations that should be maintained with trade unions led by anarchists – a very topical question today – from an article in Il Comunista dated 25 October 1921 entitled “Against the tidal wave of mistakes,” it was mentioned that the International Red Union had taken the initiative of setting up a meeting between the Confederation, the Syndicalist Union [Unione Sindacale] and the Railwaymen’s Union [Sindacato Ferrovieri], the latter two led by anarchists. So even then communists supported organisational unity and joint action with this type of trade union. Meanwhile, the call for “independence from parties” was used instead as a pretext to oppose unity of the labour movement, as much by those who defended the call as by those who rejected it.