International: Peace & the Working Class

In London’s handsome County Council Chambers, overlooking the Thames River, 240 trade-union delegates from 45 Allied and neutral countries, claiming to represent 50,000,000 workers, met for the first international labor congress in six years. The war was being won. In a dozen different tongues, labor was eager to say what it wanted from the postwar world.

The Big Three—the U.S., Britain, Russia—dominated the polyglot gathering. The Soviet Union (in numbers at least) dominated the Big Three. Russia had sent a team of 36 delegates, plus nine “advisers and interpreters,” to London.

The chief of its delegation (which included seven women) was 44-year-old trade-union chief Vasili Kuznetsov, a rugged, hard-driving steel worker who learned to speak fluent English while working for Henry Ford in Detroit. Britain’s 15 delegates were headed by veteran T.U.C. Secretary Sir Walter Citrine,* who spoke for British labor. The U.S. delegation, led by P.A.C. Chairman Sidney Hillman and U.A.W. President Rolland Jay Thomas, spoke only for the C.I.O. The A.F. of L. had haughtily refused to sit down with the Communist Russians.

The Politics of Labor. The congress planned to map its policies within a fortnight. Two deep issues threatened international labor unity: ¶Sir Walter Citrine, in a speech of “controlled fury,” fought a Soviet proposal to invite delegates from ex-enemy countries, i.e., Rumania, Finland, Bulgaria, who would presumably always support the Soviet delegation. French, Indian and Polish delegates backed Britain. Russian Delegate M. P. Tarasov flatly rejected the “extremely unpersuasive” arguments of “Comrade Citrine.” Strongest Soviet backer turned out to be fiery Vicente Lombardo Toledano, of the potent Confederation de Trabajadores de America Latina. The capable Mexican labor leader, having in recent years extended his organization into other Latin American countries, was able as the representative of some 4,000,000 workers to make his strength felt. An open split was averted by the arrival of C.I.O.’s Rolland Thomas, who, having had “a wash and a Scotch” at his hotel, made a fervent appeal for compromise. The compromise: ex-enemy delegates, if they present satisfactory union references, could be seated; otherwise they could only observe. ¶Britain’s Citrine demanded that congress decisions be merely advisory, not binding on the constituent organizations, since Russia’s vast voting strength (27,000,000 workers against Britain’s 6,642,000) would enable her to steamroller through whatever she wanted. With French and C.I.O. support, the congress agreed to bring resolutions to a vote but stipulated that each country should have only one vote.

“Irresistibly Onward.” The question that might split the congress or make it a new mighty factor in world affairs still lay ahead: whether to take Russia and the C.I.O. into the existing International Federation of Trade Unions, or to create a new world labor international. Britain favors the first, Russia and the C.I.O., the second.

If the Soviet view prevailed, it would be Russia’s second big attempt to form a new labor international. The Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern) was quietly quashed seven years ago, never having made headway towards its object, to capture the conservative trade unions of all countries.

Perhaps, in the auspicious atmosphere of Russia’s new political prestige, Lenin’s words to the Profintern’s first world congress were again remembered in Moscow: “The conversion of trade-union members to the ideas of Communism is moving irresistibly onward everywhere . . . moving irregularly, incorrectly, unsteadily, overcoming thousands of obstacles, but . . . still moving irresistibly onward.”

-For other news of Sir Walter, see FOREIGN NEWS.