Issuing body: Conference for the Fourth International
DRAFT RESOLUTION ON WORK IN THE TRADE UNIONS
1. The Fourth International has set itself the task of leading the workers of every country to the final victory of socialism. It therefore strives ardently to be in the closest possible contact with the workers and fully adopts the Bolshevik principle: a communist must work where the masses are to be found.
The most powerful working-class organisations, numerically speaking, are the reformist trade unions. One of the most urgent and important tasks of all the organisations and of every member of the Fourth International is to work inside these unions in order to break the influence of the reformist bureaucracy and to lead large numbers of trade unionists onto the revolutionary path.
The question of "when and how" the organisations of the Fourth International will succeed in establishing themselves solidly within the working class, in acquiring broad influence and, finally, in becoming mass organisations themselves, depends in the first place on the results of their efforts to win the confidence of the workers inside the trade unions and to establish themselves firmly there.
Revolutionary work in the reformist trade unions is inseparable from the action to be carried out in the enterprises themselves. Without systematic and persevering work in the trade unions, it is impossible to acquire or maintain influence over the workers in the enterprises.
It is among the organised masses, in the reformist trade unions, that the newest and most active forces must be won for the Fourth International. To neglect this task would be to condemn the Fourth International and all its sections to stagnation, to isolation, and to paralysis.
2. The Fourth International makes its own the principles and resolutions adopted by the Communist International under Lenin's leadership, during the first four world congresses, concerning the attitude and conduct of communists towards the reformist trade unions. Lenin himself summarised the communist principles of trade-union work in "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder.
The Comintern's resolutions on the trade unions from Lenin's time need to be corrected and made more precise on directly tactical and practical points, but the main thrust of these resolutions has been confirmed and justified by the course of history, including by the subsequent development of the Stalinist Comintern itself.
The decline and degeneration of the Comintern, its open passage into the camp of social-patriotism, find clear reflection in the attitude of the Third International towards work directed at the reformist trade unions and at the workers massively organised within them. The policy of the Stalinist Comintern concerning trade-union work has oscillated between concessions to the reformist bureaucracies and ultra-left sectarianism: the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU) and the independent red unions — criticised long ago by Lenin — ending today in open capitulation before the reformist bureaucracy (Jouhaux).
If the complete isolation of the Communist Parties, resulting from the RILU's policy, led the working class to disaster (the catastrophe in Germany), the Comintern's present policy is a hindrance to the workers which it is leading to new defeats: witness its capitulation before the reformists and the support given to the reformist bureaucracy during the strikes in France that began at Brest and Toulon and spread to the last great strike wave.
Whereas Stalinism has openly broken with Leninist principles and tactics concerning intervention in the mass reformist trade unions — first through the leftist and adventurist policy of the RILU, which helped throw the German proletariat into the fascist concentration camps, and now through its capitulation before Jouhaux and the Jouhauxs of every country, thereby leading the working class down the same path as in Germany — the Fourth International and all the organisations affiliated to it declare themselves unconditionally, in accordance with the great historical events, in favour of applying Leninist principles and tactics with regard to the reformist trade unions and the millions of workers who are members of them.
3. The policy of the independent red unions and of the RILU ended in total failure. These unions were in no way directed against the reformist bureaucracy, but rapidly proved to be instruments through which the communists isolated themselves from the mass of trade unionists and swiftly lost their influence in the enterprises. Thus the communists became incapable of influencing the working class, of deepening the radicalisation of the masses, or of providing them with leadership and a goal.
The organisations of the Fourth International fight to draw the few independent unions that still exist out of their isolation and to bring them to reunify with the mass reformist organisations. Only in this way will it be possible for the revolutionaries who still belong to the independent unions to establish themselves solidly among the great mass of the workers and to exert a revolutionary influence over them.
4. For the organisations of the Fourth International, trade-union unity is not unity with the reformist bureaucracy. A severe struggle must be waged everywhere against the unity of the bureaucracies. It is only in this struggle that genuine trade-union unity can be accomplished and take shape: the unity and solidarity of the working class in its struggle against capitalist exploitation and against the capitalist system as a whole. Trade-union bureaucrats — whether reformist or Stalinist — have an interest in the preservation of capitalist society. The struggle against the capitalist system therefore requires, above all, the struggle against the trade-union bureaucracy, whose aim is to contain the revolutionary impulses of the masses, to hold back the preparation of struggles, and to divert the struggles themselves. When the bureaucracy demands that the workers respect order and discipline, it is simply asking them not to infringe the "order and discipline" of capitalist society and of the bourgeois state apparatus. This was demonstrated once again during the recent wave of strikes and factory occupations in France.
Trade-union unity is not for us a fetish, nor a means of defending the interests of the bureaucratic machine. It implies the need to rally the proletarian masses to fight and resist in unity, including against the wishes and the sabotage of the reformist bureaucracy.
5. In periods of rising revolutionary militancy, the masses begin to flood into the trade unions on a massive scale. This large influx greatly increases the importance of the trade unions in the struggle of the working class. What occurred in Germany after the war and the recent events in France make this kind of development sufficiently evident. However, while the workers flooding into the unions are preparing for struggle and hoping to be able to carry the decisive fight against capitalist society through to the end, the trade-union bureaucracy strives to prevent them from engaging in the decisive confrontations, in order to subject them to the constraints of bourgeois bureaucratic discipline. The antagonism that exists between the hopes and the will of the revolutionary masses, on the one hand, and the interests of the trade-union bureaucracy, on the other, is insurmountable. Only two solutions remain: either, through the pressure of the masses, the bureaucratic manoeuvres and the bureaucracy itself are swept away and eliminated, or the joint force of the trade-union bureaucracy and the bourgeois state apparatus succeeds in sabotaging and breaking the revolutionary strength of the masses.
In this situation it is the duty of all the organisations of the Fourth International to place themselves, without delay and with the utmost energy, at the side of the revolutionary masses, to unite with them and to help them fight against the sabotage and betrayal of the bureaucracy. The trade-union fractions of the Fourth International have the task of organising the resistance of trade unionists against the reformist bureaucracy, of pointing out to the workers the revolutionary way out, and of leading them onto the path of revolution.
In the present situation, where the reformist and Stalinist bureaucracies are sinking into the swamp of social-patriotism and class collaboration — the Popular Front — the task of preparing the overthrow of the capitalist order falls to the organisations of the Fourth International alone. It depends, first and foremost, on their present and future work whether the labouring masses begin to advance along the road to revolution or are strangled by the reformist bureaucracy. Under these circumstances, failing to deploy all available forces in the reformist trade unions (and hence in the enterprises) would amount to rendering the Fourth International insignificant and compromising it. Any tendency to neglect work in the trade-union organisations must therefore be combated constantly and with the utmost firmness. The experience gained through the trade-union policy of the Comintern and of the RILU, which led to political catastrophe, places on all the organisations of the Fourth International the obligation to intervene systematically and intensively in the reformist trade unions, and to regard this work as their primary task.
6. Revolutionary action in the trade unions requires the concrete needs and demands of the workers to be taken into account. It is not enough to proclaim and constantly repeat abstract revolutionary slogans. To do trade-union work means waging guerrilla warfare in the interest of the workers and against the interests and manoeuvres of the bureaucracy. This struggle must not be waged in isolation by the various trade-union fractions of the Fourth International. All efforts must tend towards drawing the broad masses into the trade-union movement and winning their cooperation. It is through their own practical experience in the trade unions that the masses must come to recognise that the day-to-day interests of the proletariat are better defended — with greater vigour — and better represented by the organisations of the Fourth International. That is the only way to win the confidence of the workers. It is also the means of making the proletariat receptive to our slogans with a view to decisive large-scale actions.
The organisations of the Fourth International must engage in the trade-union struggles taking place before the broadest masses; they must strive to draw the greatest possible number of trade unionists into the organisational life of the union. To this end, a close link must be established between the enterprise and the union. Problems concerning the trade unions must become problems concerning the enterprise — that is, the working class as a whole — and vice versa. Only by this method will it be possible to place the trade-union bureaucracy under the permanent control of the proletariat. Only by this method is it possible to unmask its manoeuvres and its secret diplomacy.
7. It is the task of the organisations of the Fourth International to take a stand for the establishment of links between employed workers and the unemployed. It is necessary to fight energetically against the efforts of the reformist bureaucracy to isolate the unemployed and to prevent them from participating in trade-union life. Any division between the unemployed and the employed serves only the interests of the bourgeoisie — and also those of the reformist bureaucracy, which does not hesitate to set the unemployed against workers in employment, particularly when it is a matter of sabotaging and strangling strikes and other similar actions. The proletarian solution to the problem of the unemployed is to refuse any division between the unemployed and those in employment and to create the closest unity of action between the two.
The organisations of the Fourth International intervene in existing unemployed organisations or take an active part in the task of building such organisations. Within them, they develop their line, which is to bring these organisations into close contact with the mass trade unions. The unemployed must be involved in all actions of the working class: strike pickets, etc.
8. All the organisations of the Fourth International are obliged to urge all their members to join a trade union.
Inside the trade unions, militants of the Fourth International must organise themselves into trade-union fractions which, in turn, must be coordinated at local and national level. These fractions may be divided into narrow fractions, comprising only organised militants of the Fourth International, and broad fractions, comprising all sympathisers.
The trade-union fractions must be closely linked to the day-to-day life of the unions and must take a position on every question touching on trade unionism. They must also strive to establish living contact with the enterprises, with factory committees, workshop councils, etc. However resolutely the struggle against the reformist bureaucracy is waged, efforts must be made to prevent it from expelling revolutionaries from the trade unions. The closer the links between the militants of the Fourth International and the workers, the more difficult it will be for the bureaucracy to carry out expulsions. Expelled militants and organisations must remain in contact with the trade-union fractions and the enterprises. Intensive, systematic campaigns will be conducted among the masses, in the factories and in the trade unions, for their reinstatement.
9. The organisations of the Fourth International shall create an international trade-union commission whose purpose is to work for cooperation between the national trade-union fractions and for the development of their struggle, and thereby to build and train a core of full-time workers of the Fourth International qualified for trade-union work and capable of developing, among the broad masses organised in the trade unions, the idea of revolutionary internationalism and of the world proletarian revolution.
To this end, the international trade-union commission of the Fourth International shall regularly publish an international bulletin dealing with trade-union problems.
(Translated from Party Organizer, bulletin of the SWP, No. 4, June 1978 [as printed in the source; the date is almost certainly a misprint for June 1938].)
Note concerning a trade-union thesis
A draft trade-union thesis was submitted to the conference which, for material reasons, could not be dealt with. The draft will be published in the next bulletin of the International Secretariat, and all comrades are invited to take part, through written discussion contributions, in the elaboration of a trade-union thesis.