political party, the Third International, one of the first great organizational problems to confront them was that of the trade unions. In order to succeed in its immense task of overthrowing capitalism generally, the new International was compelled to have the backing of the masses organized industrially. But the difficulty was how to secure this support. Everywhere the trade unions were in the hands of reactionary leaders, and the question was whether the Communists should stay in the old unions and launch a bitter struggle to control them, or withdraw from them, smash them up, and start dual labor movements in the various countries.
For a time the dualistic conception prevailed, particularly in the programs for Germany and the United States. But the keen Russian leaders at the head of the Third International were quick to perceive the folly of such a course. Zinoviev, Radek, and others began to combat the separatist tendency and to urge penetration of the trade unions. Lenin himself was especially militant in this respect. In his famous booklet, The Infantile Sickness of 'Leftism' in Communism, he says:
But the German 'Left' Communists commit the same stupidity when, because of the reactionary and counter-revolutionary heads of the trades unions, they, through some inexplicable mental process, jump to the conclusion that it is necessary to quit these organizations altogether! To refuse to work in them! To invent new workingmen's unions! This is an unpardonable blunder which results in the Communists rendering the greatest service to the bourgeoisie … A greater lack of sense and more harm to the revolution than this attitude of the 'Left' Communists cannot be imagined … There is no doubt that Messrs. Gompers, Henderson, Jouhaux, Legien, etc., are very grateful to such 'Left' revolutionaries who, like the German opposition-in-principle elements, or as so many among the American revolutionaries in the Industrial Workers of the World, preach the necessity of quitting reactionary trade unions and refusing to work in them.
Losovsky, head of the Red International of Labor Unions and also of the General Council of the All-Russian Trade Unions, was another who inveighed heavily against dual unionism. In his pamphlet, The International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions, and speaking of the formation of that body, forerunner of the present Red International of Labor Unions, he says:
