To All Workers Organized in Unions
“The Communist Party, fulfilling its formal commitment and specific duty, launches its appeal for all red unions that are outside the Confederation to join it.”
COMRADES!
For the Communist Party, one of the most pressing issues in revolutionary preparation is the trade union question.
In all countries of the world, this issue is on the agenda. The degree of consciousness and revolutionary strength of the working class is closely linked to the situation of the economic organizations in whose ranks workers of all categories and professions are grouped.
In Italy, the Communist Party, at its inception, finds itself faced with a situation which, while not substantially different, is certainly no less difficult to deal with than that of other countries, from the point of view of the party’s relations with the large organized masses, the propaganda of communism, and efficient revolutionary preparation.
The Socialist Party, from whose split our party recently emerged, has always worked alongside the largest of the major Italian trade union organizations: the General Confederation of Labor. In the years before the war, many organizations broke away from it when the trade unionists left the Socialist Party; and even today, those organizations are nationally linked in another body, the Italian Syndicalist Union.
There are also large national trade organizations which, faced with this situation and unable to choose between the two existing trade union centers, are unaffiliated with either: the Italian Railway Union, the Federation of Maritime Workers, the Federation of Port Workers, and a few smaller trade union groups. It goes without saying that we are not even talking here about those pseudo-trade union movements that openly support avowedly bourgeois parties, often under the usual reactionary mask of apoliticality, and which were created by populists, interventionists, or fascists.
Upon leaving the Socialist Party, the communists considered the trade union problem according to the views derived from their Marxist doctrine and from the discipline they unconditionally observed, in accordance with the tactical directives established by the congresses of the Third International.
According to Italian communists and communists in all countries, the most effective means of gaining ground for revolutionary tendencies among the organized masses is not to split those unions that are in the hands of deft, reformist, opportunistic, counterrevolutionary leaders. Having cut ties, both nationally and internationally, with these traitors to the working class, and having established the Communist Party as the organization that embraces only those workers who are fully conscious of the revolutionary directives of the Communist International, the members and militants of the revolutionary party do not leave the unions, they do not push the masses to abandon and boycott them, but within them, from within the economic organization, they wage the fiercest struggle against the opportunism of the leaders.
Without repeating here all the reasons of principle and practical experience on which this precise and immutable tactic adopted by communists throughout the world is based, we wish to express our conviction that all Italian workers have clearly understood the spirit and attitude taken by the communists in not leaving the Confederation of Labor, which is notoriously led by reformist elements who have always been on the extreme right of the old party and who are responsible for a whole series of anti-revolutionary policies, a veritable series of betrayals to the detriment of the Italian proletariat, and compromises with the bourgeoisie.
We are more determined than any other group of revolutionary workers to fight against the policies of those enemies of our cause. If we believed that another method—let us say, leaving the Confederation en masse to join the Italian Trade Union, or founding another national trade union body—would offer an advantage in the struggle against D’Aragona and Co. of the Confederation, and would lead more quickly to their elimination, we would embrace this other method with enthusiasm. But this is not the case. If our party had taken that stance, it would have done the greatest pleasure and rendered the best service to the counter-revolutionaries who sit on the supreme confederal benches. Among the many proofs of this elementary truth provided in our propaganda writings, one that is particularly effective is that in many countries around the world, the Social Democrats have launched a campaign to exclude by every unfair means from the trade unions they lead those organized communists and communist organizers who – as they were well aware – were undermining the foundations of their dictatorship by opening the eyes of the masses.
This is also beginning to happen in Italy, as a response by the leaders of the Confederation and certain large organizations to the vigorous campaign we have launched and carried out against them within the organizations themselves. The Communist Party has quickly rallied the trade union forces under its leadership and organized opposition to the reformists—that is, to all socialists, since nothing today distinguishes the Serratians from the Turatis and the D’Aragona—who dominate our largest organization. A first battle took place at the confederal congress in Livorno, and partial battles are taking place every day within the leagues, the Chambers of Labor, and the national federations. No organized worker, whether communist, syndicalist, or anarchist, will therefore see a contradiction between our presence in the ranks of the Confederation and our firm resolve to fight to the end against its current leaders.
In addition to the communist workers, there are thousands and thousands of other organized workers who are fiercely opposed to the directives of the confederal reformists, and many of them are members of the other organizations mentioned above. It is to these comrades of ours, whether organized or organizers, that we intend to address our appeal.
We are well aware, and have no reason to hide it, that there are differences of political opinion between communists, syndicalists, and anarchists. We are also well aware that these differences are reflected in the attitude that each of these tendencies takes on trade union issues.
But these tendencies have this common position: to take away the domination of the working masses from the reformists, the social pacifists, the deniers and saboteurs of all revolutionary action. On the international stage, all these tendencies are as opposed to the defunct Second International politics of traitors as they are bitterly opposed to the Amsterdam Trade Union International, which they unanimously consider to be an organization of traitors subservient to the world imperialist bourgeoisie, to the league of the great slave-driving capitalists of the Entente.
Trade unionists and anarchists have differences with the theses of the Communist International that keep them out of its ranks and its precise discipline. But those differences that divide political organizations and proletarian political schools have no reason to divide the trade union movement, which must rely on the bulk of the proletarian workforce. Trade unionists and anarchists can accept the communists’ plan of action against Amsterdam: to demolish the yellow trade union International, not by boycotting the national unions affiliated to it because they comprise the bulk of the organized proletariat, whose leadership has been usurped by the big trade union mandarins through a series of well-known expedients, but by fighting within these national trade union bodies to wrest them one by one from the insidious tutelage of the Amsterdammers.
Thus, alongside the political Communist International, there arises the Trade Union International, whose ranks are joined by all organized workers with the aim of fighting the bourgeoisie until it is overthrown. This revolutionary, red trade union International, clearly opposed to the opportunist and yellow International of Amsterdam, will soon hold its World Congress, and all trade unions that accept the struggle against the bourgeoisie and against reformist opportunism will take part in it.
In Italy, the proposal put forward by some left-wing elements of the labor movement that the communists, using their considerable union strength, should leave the Confederation of Labor and work to establish a larger revolutionary union organization shows a lack of understanding of the position long held by communists in Italy and abroad on the trade union issue, but it does demonstrate a tendency to intensify the struggle with all left-wing trade union forces to destroy the harmful influence of reformists on the masses, without specifying more precisely the new guidelines to be adopted, and whether these should be those of the communists, the trade unionists, or the anarchists.
While, on the other hand, the communists make their presence in the Confederation a fundamental issue, the workers organized in the Trade Union and other bodies are not only not in principle in favor of the existence of two opposing workers’ organizations, but have often shown themselves to be inclined towards the unification of Italian trade union organizations.
If – without prejudice to differences in doctrine and method – there is one obstacle to be removed, it is the doubt, which we believe to have been dispelled, that the attitude of the communists is dictated by a lack of determination in the anti-reformist struggle, rather than, as we have seen, by the intention to strike them where they are most vulnerable and in the most decisive manner.
All the trade union forces that are against the defeatist and ruinous policy of the reformists could therefore come together on a common platform to work within the Confederation against its current leaders, achieving the merger of all trade union organizations, but above all maximizing the value of all opposition to the policy of social betrayal that has so often compromised the fate of the decisive struggles of the Italian proletariat.
COMRADES, WORKERS!
It is for all these reasons, to which you must pay the utmost attention, that the Communist Party, fulfilling its formal commitment and precise duty, launches its appeal for all red proletarian unions that are outside the Confederation to join it.
A thousand subtle bureaucratic and procedural tricks stand in the way of this result, which the reformist wheeler-dealers will exploit to the full. We know this. But the purpose of all these mechanisms, of this bureaucratic obstructionism, under which the organized proletariat is suffocated, is precisely to exclude from the organizations the innovative elements who alone could lead the masses of their comrades to shake off the dictatorship of the pie-cards. Keeping out of fear of their unfair, but not invincible, weapons is the most direct way to give our opponents a victory.
The Communist Party appeals to all fellow workers in industry and agriculture and to their organizations outside the Confederation and warmly invites them to overcome the obstacles arising from minor procedural and formal issues in order to focus on the substance.
The Communist Party is convinced that those workers who feel an insurmountable repugnance for the right-wing elements of the labor movement will understand how different and more loyal this appeal is from the hypocritical statements made by the Social Democrats when they in turn speak of trade union unity. The recent confederal congress unanimously voted for a similar invitation, but it had a very different meaning and value from ours, and we ask that it not be confused with ours. While the desire for proletarian unity is spontaneous and widespread among the organized masses, the intention of the socialist leaders who ostentatiously voted for this principle in Livorno conceals a subtle hypocrisy and the intention to use a clever policy of obstructionism to block the path to the strengthening of the forces opposed to them. They subtly confuse the unity of the organized masses, with benevolent neutrality towards them, with the disarming of opposition to the current confederal majority they lead. We, on the contrary, see in the organizational unity of the unionized masses the indispensable condition for successfully completing the campaign against the opportunism lurking in the proletarian movement, which claims to speak in the name of the proletariat while doing work that only benefits the bourgeoisie.
We therefore urge those who are organized in bodies outside the Confederation to overcome their hesitations. It is not a question of going to the opportunists, of accepting their invitation to spare them, but of accepting the proposal of the Communist Party and the Moscow International to adopt a tactical method that aims to serve and will serve to ruthlessly dismantle the dictatorship of the counter-revolutionaries and opportunists over the unionized masses.
Of course, after our appeal and all our work have convinced the workers we are addressing – as we ardently hope they will – there will be many other problems and obstacles to overcome in order to achieve the settlement of the Italian trade union movement, in relation, of course, to the international movement, in the sense we hope for.
However, we are confident that these will not be insurmountable problems or obstacles, provided that there is goodwill, clarity, and sincerity. We trust that our words will not fall on deaf ears, that the proletarian assemblies and all the organizations that bring together workers of all categories will take up the issue as we have outlined it, and that everyone will contribute so that the most difficult aspects of the work to be done can be successfully overcome. Those who do so will have done their duty to the cause of the proletarian revolution.
The Communist Party awaits the outcome of this initiative with interest and is committing all its energies to its success; the activity of all its members, and above all of those who are organized, the organizers, the organizations, which are following the party’s directives, both within the Confederation and other trade union bodies. The Communist Party of Italy enthusiastically salutes all revolutionary workers who will join it in this fundamental work of preparing the Italian proletariat for the supreme battles of its liberation.
COMRADES, ORGANIZED WORKERS!
We are sure that our cry will find a formidable echo among you:
Long live the International of Red Trade Unions! Down with the International of Yellows and Renegades!
Long live the victory of Moscow over Amsterdam, of revolution over opportunist betrayal!
Long live the unity of workers in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and triumph of communism!
Long live the unity of the Italian proletarian forces, which will unite them against the dictatorship of the firemen, around the banner of revolution!
The Central Committee of the Communist Party
The Trade Union Committee of the Communist Party