One of the incidents of the Trades Union Congress at Margate was an angry speech by Mr. Arthur Deakin denouncing the Russians for their efforts to dominate the World Federation of Trade Unions and to use it simply as a platform for Russian Government policies. It is taken to mean that the perpetual wrangling that has paralysed the W.F.T.U. since it was formed in 1945 may end in the withdrawal of the British T.U.C. along with the American C.I.O. and other non-Communist unions. This would only give organisational effect to a deep cleavage that already exists and give us two Internationals, one ostensibly representing the workers in Russia and her satellites and the other the workers in Western Europe, America and the British Dominions. “Ostensibly representing the workers” has to be used for the sake of accuracy because the W.F.T.U. and many of its affiliated bodies have moved far from the old idea of an international organisation controlled by trade unions and directly representing their vague aspirations towards international working class solidarity.
The old International Federation of Trade Unions, in the forty or more years of its chequered history, did some good work within the limits set by the political backwardness and nationalistic outlook of the affiliated unions. Disrupted by the first world war, weakened by the enforced withdrawal of Italian and German unions when those countries came under dictatorship, and for long the object of Communist enmity and attempted destruction, it nevertheless survived until in 1945 the much more ambitious plans were evolved to form a World Federation of Trade Unions to include the Russians and others not in the I.F.T.U. With all its faults and limitations the old I.F.T.U. was an organisation that consistently accepted the principle that a trade union is a voluntary independent organisation of workers, controlled by themselves, and existing for the purpose of waging the struggle of the wage-earners against the employers. Now the workers movement has moved backwards and trade unions have increasingly become organisations closely bound up with and giving expression to governmental policies. The extreme case is, of course, that of the so-called unions in Russia and Russian-controlled countries, where the idea of a trade union expressing views independent of those imposed by the Government is unthinkable ; but even where the Unions can legally be independent bodies, as in this country, it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish between the policies of union executives and those of governments.
While that condition continues a trade union International is almost superfluous, a mere duplication of governments. It was, therefore, almost inevitable that, just as the Labour Parties of Western Europe have no connection with the international Communist organisation, so the trade unions of the world would be divided according to the division of world governments.
The dissensions in the World Federation of Trade Unions have partly been concerned with Marshall Aid and partly with the question of the degree of autonomy that the International Trade Departments (i.e. the occupational internationals such as the Miners’ International, Transport Workers’ International, etc.) should retain inside the world organisation of national bodies like the Trades Union Congress, but this was only the form not the substance of the conflict. The real issue has always been whether non-Communist unions could usefully associate with government-controlled Communist bodies in Russia and elsewhere. It now seems probable that the attempt will be abandoned and the groups form rival trade union federations.
It is another reminder that internationalism is not something that can be created out of optimistically drafted paper constitutions in advance of the workers’ understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment