Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/123

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Leonistic, blue-print, utopian type of union so popular in this country. They are not content merely to "pay themselves with words" as we have been doing for a generation past by toying with all sorts of impossible dual unions. They want results, hence their vote of ten to one in favor of staying within the old trade unions. Later on the Executive Board of the R. T. U. L. recommended that the members of the L W. W. and other dual unions rejoin their respective trade unions.

Another important question considered by the congress was the relationship to be established between the newly-formed Red Trade Union International and the III International. Over this the congress divided into two factions—Communists and Syndicalists. The Communists with their usual program of welding ail the workers' organizations into a single fighting body, stood for a firm organic connection between the workers' international economic and political movements. The Syndicalists opposed this, but their opposition showed that the Communist conception is gradually winning ascendancy over their old anti-political ideas. The militant, fighting Communist Party is disproving their theory that all political organizations are necessarily reformist and compromising in character. Over half of the French delegation were outspoken Communists, and the rest had Communist leanings. A similar condition prevailed in other groups formerly entirely Syndicalist. The I. W. W. delegate alone adhered strictly to the orthodox anti-political position and would have no truck whatsoever with the III International.

As against the definite proposition of the Communists, the Syndicalists, unable to agree among themselves, put forth a variety of plans. These usually went no further than calling for close co-operation between the Red Trade Union International and the III International, facilitated by an exchange of fraternal delegates between the two bodies. Their conception of the role of the two movements was well summed up by the expression, "To walk separately, but to strike together." Arlandes of Spain, like some others, feared that the Communist Party might not always remain revolutionary: he advocated a spiritual alliance only between the two organizations. Another group found their ideas

122