INTRODUCTION
THIS book is the stenographic report of a series of lectures, delivered by A. Losovsky, General Secretary of the Red International of Labor Unions before the school of the Russian Communist Party in Moscow, during July and August, 1923. It was published in pamphlet form in the Russian language early this year, and is herewith presented in English.
Probably the most important characteristic of Losovsky's lectures is that, for the first time, there is available a comprehensive picture of the trade union movement from the world viewpoint, which deals not so much with the statics (the unilluminating details of organization and the million variations of program and problems) but rather with the vital, living influences at work within the labor movement, the tendencies, the relation of forces and, especially, with the tremendous struggle developing throughout the world since the war by the forces of revolutionary struggle, crystallized in the Red International of Labor Unions, against the class collaboration policies of the old bureaucracy, organized in the Amsterdam International (International Federation of Trade Unions).
It is this world-wide viewpoint upon which the lectures are based that gives the book its greatest value. Such a comprehensive outlook is especially needed in the American labor movement. The trade union movement in this country, originally among the most militant and international in its attitude, has for forty years been stifled by the narrow nationalism, as well as by the jealous craft spirit within the limits of the nation, of the reactionary officialdom headed by Samuel Gompers. To see and to understand that the fundamental problems of the trade unions throughout the world are essentially the same as our own, an understanding which a study of Losovsky's book will certainly give, is to lay the firmest possible foundation—the only possible one—for a broad and powerful revolutionary organization in America.
American Trade Unionism Before the War
If we were to attempt an adequate review of developments within the American labor movement, as complete and comprehensive as that given by Losovsky for the International, it would require another book of almost equal dimensions. In this brief introduction it is the purpose only to suggest some of the main points of comparison.
In the pre-war period of American trade unionism, three main tendencies may be distinguished; they may be classified as trade unionism, syndicalism, and socialism. Each of these tendencies, although corresponding in a general way to their analogous forces in the European movement, varied in. many respects from their counterparts in other countries.
Trade unionism, as a distinct philosophy of the labor movement which concerns itself exclusively with the immediate economic struggle,
