The
Marxist
Volume:
2,
No.
1
January-
March
1984
Marx
And
Trade
Unions
B
T
Randive
WHEN
Karl
Marx
entered
on
his
political
activities,
the
trade
unions
of
the
working
class
had
just
started
coming
into
existence.
Their
emergence
was
an
anathema
to
the
capitalist
rulers,
and
they
were
banned
in
many
countries.
Those
who
thought
of
socialism
in
those
days-
the
utopian
socialists,
the
petty
bourgeois
socialists
and
others-did
not
understand
the
importance
of
this
form
of
working
class
organisation.
Some
of
them
were
openly
opposed
to
trade
unions,
considering
them
to
be
useless
and
harmful,
while
others
demanded
a
ban
on
strikes
for
being
harmful
to
social
development
and
interests.
Others
still
saw
in
the
trade
unions
and
strike
the
exclusive
instrument
of
social
change.
But
they
would
not
go
beyond
economic
struggle
and
abjured
all
politics
on
principle,
as
compromise
with
the
existing
order.
None
of
these
viewpoints
understood
the
link
of
the
trade
union
struggle
with
the
struggle
for
the
emancipation
of
the
working
class
and
society
from
capitalist
bondage
and
with
the
struggle
for
the
capture
of
political
power
by
the
working
class.
This
was
because
they
did
not
understand
the
content
of
the
modern
class
struggle
and
the
role
of
the
working
class
as
the
leading
force
of
the
socialist
revolution.
For
Marx,
the
working
class
was
the
only
revolutionary
class
facing
the
capitalist
class.
In
the
Communist
Manifesto
he
said:
“Of
all
the
classes
that
stand
face
to
face
with
the
bourgeoisie
today,
the
proletariat
alone
is
a
really
revolutionary
class.
The
other
classes
decay
and
finally
disappear
in
the
face
of
modern
industry,
the
proletariat
is
its
special
and
essential
product.”
Every
activity
of
this
class
was
therefore,
important
for
Marx-activity
in
which
the
class
got
consciousness
to
move
forward.
The
formation
of
trade
unions
and
the
trade
union
movement
were
important
steps
in
the
formation
of
a
class,
a
common
class-consciousness.
The
superior
organisation-
the
political
party
of
the
working
class
could
not
be
formed
and
expanded
in
isolation
from
this
practical
struggle
involving
the
large
mass
of
workers.
That
is
why
the
statutes
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association
provided
for
affiliation
of
trade
unions
and
other
organisations
of
the
working
class,
along
with
individual
membership.
In
the
conduct
of
the
historic
International
Working
Men’s
Association,
as
well
as
after
its
dissolution,
Marx
continued
to
attach
due
importance
to
the
trade
unions
in
the
revolutionary
struggle
of
the
working
class
and
at
the
same
time
exposed
the
leadership
which
severed
this
link.
The
aim
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association,
in
the
eyes
of
Marx,
was
not
only
to
unite
the
trade
unions
for
daily
struggles
and
international
cooperation.
The
trade
unions,
of
course,
achieved
primary
importance
because
they
represented
the
direct
class
activity
of
the
working
class.
The
real
aim
was
to
work
for
the
political
unification
of
the
international
working
class
movement
in
the
struggle
for
social
emancipation
–
political
organisation
of
the
working
class.
It
was
arrived
at
by
focusing
on
organisation
which,
in
the
words
of
Engels,
“would
demonstrate
bodily,
so
to
speak,
the
international
character
of
the
socialist
movement,
both
to
the
workers
themselves
and
to
the
bourgeois
and
to
the
Governments-for
the
encouragement
and
strengthening
of
the
proletariat,
for
striking
fears
into
the
hearts
of
its
enemies.”
(Selected
Works,
vol.
3,
page
82).
To
achieve
this
purpose
it
was
necessary
to
pay
close
attention
to
the
trade
union
movement.
Marx
had
to
unite
the
various
manifestations
of
working
class
unrest-
of
which
the
trade
union
movement
was
one-
and
by
continuous
struggle
teach
the
others
of
the
vital
importance
of
the
trade
union
movement
in
the
struggle
for
socialism.
It
was
a
prolonged
battle
waged
in
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association.
It
was
a
battle,
which
was
later
in
continued
against
trade
union
reformism,
which
diverted
the
working
class
from
its
final
aims.
That
battle
had
to
be
picked
up
by
Lenin
and
later
on
carried
on
by
the
Communist
International
and
communist
parties.
This
fight
against
bourgeois
influence
in
the
trade
unions
has
had
to
be
carried
on
today
also
in
almost
all
capitalist
countries,
including
the
newly
liberated
countries.
The
type
of
united
front
that
had
to
be
forged
out
of
the
different
manifestations
can
be
seen
form
the
following
from
Engels
regarding
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association:
“Its
aim
was
to
weld
together
into
one
huge
army
all
the
fighting
forces
of
the
working
class
of
Europe
and
America….
The
International
was
bound
to
have
a
programme
which
would
not
shut
the
door
on
the
English
trade
unions,
the
French,
Belgian
and
Italian
and
Spanish
Proudhonists
and
the
German
Lassalleans.”
This
was
a
motley
crowd
of
ideologies
representing
the
immature
state
of
the
working
class
movement.
Marx
and
Engels
had
to
work
and
act
tactfully
to
shepherd
the
actual
movement
into
revolutionary
channels,
towards
the
understanding
that
they
had
gained.
In
his
letter
to
Bolte,
Marx
wrote,
“The
International
was
founded
for
the
purpose
of
putting
the
real
organisation
of
the
working
class
in
the
place
of
the
socialist
and
semi-socialist
sects.”
The
real
and
practical
organisation
of
the
working
class
was
taking
place
in
the
shape
of
trade
unions,
mutual
aid
societies,
cooperatives,
educational
societies,
etc.,
with
the
political
party
yet
far
off.
The
sects
about
which
Marx
talks
represented
non-proletarian,
bourgeois
or
petty-bourgeois
socialist
trends
unconnected
with
the
actual
activity
of
the
working
class.
French,
socialism,
it
is
known,
constitutes
one
of
the
sources
of
Marxism.
Marx
made
a
deep
study
of
the
French
revolution,
beginning
with
the
Great
French
Revolution,
and
understood
how
the
class
struggle
of
workers
and
peasants
were
reflected
in
the
various
socialist
systems
preached.
An
outstanding
figure
representing
the
socialist
trend
was
Babeuf
during
the
Great
French
Revolution.
The
Babovians
aimed
at
organising
a
revolt
of
the
poor
against
the
rich;
they
realised
that
the
root
of
all
evil
lay
in
private
property
and
therefore
they
fought
of
economic
equality.
Their
manifesto
of
equals
proclaimed
that
the
“French
Revolution
was
only
the
forerunner
of
another
greater,
more
powerful
revolution
which
was
bound
to
be
also
the
last.”
This
programme
was
a
big
leap
forward,
though
Babeuf
and
his
followers
failed
to
see
the
social
force
that
would
carry
out
their
programme.
Following
the
suppression
of
the
“conspiracy
of
equals”
in
France,
there
was
depression
in
the
ranks
of
the
masses
and
socialist
ideas
began
to
appear
in
religious
and
humanitarian
forms.
Saints
Simon
and
Fourier
came
out
with
plans
for
reorganising
human
society.
The
progressive
character
of
their
thinking
did
not
lie
so
much
in
the
utopian
promise
of
happiness
and
prosperity
as
their
penetrating
criticism
and
exposure
of
existing
society.
Neither
of
them
thought
of
revolution.
Nor
could
they
see
in
the
working
class
the
force
capable
of
realising
their
objective.
They
hoped
to
reorganise
society
by
peaceful
means
appealing
to
the
hearts
of
people,
including
progressive
capitalists.
“The
Undeveloped
state
of
the
class
struggle,
as
well
as
their
own
surrounding
causes
socialists
of
this
kind
of
consider
themselves
far
superior
to
all
antagonism?
They
want
to
improve
the
condition
of
every
member
of
society,
even
that
of
the
most
of
favored.
Hence
they
habitually
appeal
to
society
at
large,
without
distinction
of
class;
nay,
by
preference
to
the
ruling
class….
“Hence,
they
reject
all
political
and
especially
all
revolutionary
action:
they
wish
to
attain
their
by
peaceful
means
and
endeavor,
by
small
experiments,
necessarily
doomed
to
failure,
and
by
the
force
of
example,
to
pave
the
way
for
the
new
social
Gospel.”
(“Communist
Manifesto”,
Collected
Works,
Vol.
6,
p.
515)
These
were
the
sects
divorced
from
the
actual
struggle
of
the
working
class.
Their
common
feature
was
their
failure
to
understand
the
class
struggle
and
the
role
of
the
working
class
in
changing
the
social
order.
The
task
before
Marx
was
to
fight
the
limitations
of
these
sects
and
absorb
them
in
the
real,
actual
movement
of
the
proletariat.
For
this,
patient
struggle
was
required,
combined
with
inflexible
loyalty
to
basic
principles.
In
the
Communist
Manifesto
(1848)
Marx
had
already
analysed
the
process
of
working
class
organisation
leading
to
the
formation
of
trade
unions
and
the
party
of
the
working
class.
“The
proletariat
goes
through
various
stages
of
development.
With
its
birth
begins
its
struggle
with
the
bourgeoisie.
“…The
collisions
between
individual
workmen
and
individual
bourgeois
take
more
and
the
form
of
collisions
between
two
classes.
Thereupon
the
workers
begin
to
form
(combinations)
trade
unions
against
the
bourgeois;
they
club
together
in
order
to
keep
the
rate
of
wages;
they
found
permanent
associations
in
order
to
make
provision
beforehand
for
these
occasional
revolts.
Here
and
there
the
contest
breaks
into
riots.
“Now
and
then
the
workers
are
victorious,
but
only
for
a
time.
The
real
fruit
of
their
battle
lies
in
the
immediate
result,
but
in
the
eve-expanding
union
of
the
workers…
“This
organisation
of
the
proletarians
into
a
class
and
consequently
into
a
political
party,
is
continually
being
upset
again
by
the
competition
between
the
workers
themselves.
But
it
ever
rises
up
again,
stronger,
firmer,
mightier.”
Engels
in
his
Conditions
of
the
Working
Class
in
England
says
the
same
thing
about
working
strikes.
He
describes
strikes
as
the
expression
of
the
social
war
between
the
bourgeoisie
and
the
proletariat,
as
the
training
ground
for
the
fighting
proletariat
to
fight
its
class
battles.
The
strikes
may
not
lead
to
decisive
results,
yet
they
had
an
importance
of
their
own.
Both
Marx
and
Engels
link
the
daily
struggle,
the
struggle
of
the
trade
unions
and
strikes
with
the
struggle
for
class
emancipation.
Their
contemporaries
did
not
share
this
view.
They
looked
to
emancipation
of
society
outside
the
class
struggle
of
the
working
class
and,
therefore,
failed
to
grasp
the
true
meaning
of
the
contemporary
trade
union
movement.
Deeply
studying
the
contemporary
trade
union
movement,
Marx
noted
that
in
the
course
of
struggle
the
battle
for
the
maintenance
of
the
association
becomes
more
important
than
immediate
economic
demands.
The
fight
for
the
right
of
association
becomes
a
major
issue
in
the
intensified
struggle
between
the
two
classes.
The
workers,
who
started
their
organisation
to
maintain
wages,
are
now
prepared
to
forgo
their
wages
for
weeks
and
months
to
defend
their
organisation.
That
is
why
the
strikes
against
victimisation,
against
attacks
on
the
right
of
association
and
non-recognition
of
unions
are
the
most
bitterly
fought
struggles
in
all
countries.
Marx
writes
in
Poverty
of
Philosophy:
“If
the
first
aim
of
resistance
was
merely
the
maintenance
of
wages,
in
preparation
as
the
capitalists
in
their
turn
have
combined
with
the
idea
of
repression,
the
combinations
at
first
isolated,
constitute
themselves
in
groups,
and
face
always
united
capital,
the
maintenance
of
the
association
becomes
more
necessary
to
them
than
that
of
wages.
This
is
so
true
that
the
English
economists
are
amased
to
see
the
workers
sacrifices
a
great
part
of
their
wages
in
favour
of
the
associations
which,
in
the
eyes
of
these
economists,
are
established
solely
in
favour
wages.”
(Collected
Works,
Vol.
6,
210-11)
In
securing
proper
recognition
for
the
practical
movement
of
the
working
class,
and
understanding
of
the
trade
union
movement,
Marx
had
to
fight
Proudhon
and
his
followers.
Proudhon’s
views
represented
the
aspirations
of
small
entrepreneurs
and
sections
of
the
proletariat,
which
still
had
some
bonds
with
their
petty-bourgeois
artisan
and
peasant
origin.
His
views
attracted
quite
a
large
following
in
countries
where
these
sections
constituted
a
sisable
part
of
the
working
class-France,
Belgium,
Italy
and
Spain-and
this
made
Proudhonism
an
influential
trend
in
petty-
bourgeois
socialism.
The
Marxist
struggle
against
Proudhonism
started
before
the
1848
revolution
and
continued
for
many
decades.
Proudhon
rejected
both
class
struggle
and
revolution.
He
thought
of
changing
society
through
a
vast
network
of
producers’
and
consumers’
cooperatives,
which
were
eventually
to
replace
the
capitalist
system.
For
this
purpose
there
was
to
be
a
people’s
bank
supplying
free
credit
to
the
cooperatives.
He
was
therefore
opposed
to
labour
unions,
to
strikes,
to
wage
increases
and
labour
legislation.
Against
the
rise
in
wages,
he
advanced
the
familiar
argument
that
it
would
lead
to
a
general
rise
in
prices
and
the
increase
would
bring
no
benefit
to
society.
He
was
against
the
right
to
form
combinations,
trade
unions.
“The
law
permitting
association
is,
as
a
matter
of
fact,
anti-juridical,
anti-economic,
contradicting
every
social
regime
and
public
order.”
Proudhon
did
not
understand
what
wages
were.
He
did
not
understand
how
the
worker
was
exploited
through
extraction
of
surplus
value.
He
confused
the
value
of
labour
power
with
the
value
of
the
commodities
produced.
Lassalleanism
was
another
trend
which
Marx
and
Engels
had
to
fight.
Ferdinand
Lassalle
(1825-1864)
was
a
friend
of
Marx,
became
a
socialist
and
socialist
and
called
for
the
emancipation
of
the
working
class.
He
formed
the
General
Workers’
Union
(1863)
and
sharply
raised
the
question
of
political
tasks
and
rights
of
the
working
class.
The
programme
of
the
association
was
based
on
the
idea
of
producers’
associations
supported
by
state
aid
and
considered
as
the
means
of
introducing
socialism.
Its
aim
was
proclaimed
as
the
establishment
suffrage
by
peaceful
and
lawful
means.
The
vote
was
considered
to
be
a
powerful
means
to
represent
the
interests
of
the
working
class
and
eliminate
the
class
contradictions
in
society.
Here
was
rejection
of
revolutionary
struggle.
This
was
accompanied
by
the
rejection
of
the
trade
union
struggle
the
actual
class
struggle
carried
on
by
the
working
class
at
the
time.
Lassalle
gave
exclusive
prominence
to
the
demand
for
suffrage
and
government
aid
for
producers’
societies.
Lassalle
looked
at
the
workers’
struggle
with
distrust
and
did
not
see
any
good
in
strikes.
He
said,
“Association
rights
cannot
be
of
any
use
to
the
workers.
They
bring
about
a
serious
improvement
in
the
condition
of
workers.”
Lassalle
did
not
see
the
heroism
and
the
growing
class
struggle
behind
the
British
strikes.
On
the
other
hand,
he
talked
about
the
sad
experience
of
strikes
in
Britain.
According
to
him,
a
strike
for
wages
was
a
mad
and
useless
adventure
because
the
working
class
cannot
change
the
fixed
law
of
wages.
He
therefore
rejected
the
economic
struggle
of
the
workers.
What
did
Lassalle
mean
by
the
iron
of
wages?
It
meant
that
no
matter
what
the
worker
did
and
how
he
fought,
he
would
not
be
able
to
improve
his
conditions
because
of
the
inflexible
law
of
capitalist
society.
Marx
attacked
these
propositions
as
absurd
and
pointed
out
that
wages
consisted
of
two
parts.
They
included
a
physical
minimum
and
a
social
minimum,
the
latter
changing
with
socio-historical
conditions.
The
resistance
of
the
workers
and
their
organisation
play
a
role
in
determining
the
social
minimum.
But
Lassalle
with
no
faith
in
struggle
for
improving
conditions
nor
in
revolution
stuck
to
producers’
associations.
“I
have
repeatedly
emphasised
that
I
want
individual,
voluntary
associations,
but
these,
in
order
to
come
into
existence,
must
receive
the
necessary
capital
by
a
grant
of
state
credits.
“In
order
to
emancipate
your
class,
in
order
to
emancipate
not
only
a
few
individual
workers,
but
labour
itself,
millions
and
million
of
thalers
are
required
and
these
can
be
granted
only
by
the
state
and
by
legislation.”
In
fact
Lassalle
was
asking
the
workers’
movement
to
depend
on
the
charity
of
the
Prussian
government.
Lassalle’s
outlook
in
the
end
led
him
to
lend
support
to
Bismarck
and
help
him
in
his
reactionary
designs.
Professing
concern
for
the
working
class,
Lassalle
often
joined
hands
with
the
reactionary
Bismarck
government
against
the
liberal
bourgeoisie,
siding
with
feudal
aristocracy
against
the
bourgeoisie.
Lenin
in
his
article
on
Karl
Marx
(Collected
works,
Vol.
21,
p.78)
writes
that
Marx
held
that
Lassalle’s
attitude
was
“objectively
a
betrayal
of
the
workers’
movement
of
Prussia,
incidentally
because
Lassalle
was
tolerant
of
the
junkers
and
Prussian
nationalism.”
Lenin
further
quotes
Engels
as
wrote
in
1865….it
is
dastardly
to
make
an
exclusive
attack
on
the
bourgeoisie
in
the
name
of
the
industrial
proletariat
but
never
to
devote
a
word
to
the
patriarchal
exploitation
of
the
rural
proletariat
under
the
lash
of
the
great
feudal
aristocracy.”
But
Lassalle’s
outlook
led
precisely
to
an
understanding
with
Bismarck’s
Government
and
a
blind
eye
to
feudal
exploitation.
Writing
about
“Royal
Prussian
Government
subsidising
of
cooperative
societies”
Marx
observed,
“Beyond
doubt
the
disappointment
of
Lassalle’s
hapless
illusion
concerning
social
intervention
on
the
part
of
a
Prussian
Government
will
come.
The
logic
of
things
will
have
its
say.
But
the
HONOUR
of
the
workers’
party
demands
that
it
reject
these
optical
illusions
even
before
flimsy
texture
is
rent
by
experience.
The
working
class
is
revolutionary
or
it
is
nothing.”
Marx
criticised
Lassallean
viewpoint,
which
failed
to
understand
the
importance
of
the
trade
union
movement
and
its
place
in
the
struggle
for
democracy,
against
bureaucracy
and
feudalism.
In
his
letter
dated
February
16,
1868,
Marx
wrote
to
Engels:
“Association
with
the
Trade
Unions
arising
from
them
are
not
only
important
as
means
for
organising
the
working
class
for
the
struggle
against
the
bourgeoisie-the
important
of
this
means
is
seen
in
the
fact
that
even
the
workers
of
the
United
States,
in
spite
of
the
existence
there
of
suffrage
and
republic
cannot
get
along
without
them-but
we
see
that
in
Prussia
and
in
Germany
the
right
of
association
is
besides
a
breach
in
the
domination
of
the
police
and
bureaucracy,
it
tears
asunder
the
farmhand’s
law
and
the
economy
of
the
nobility
in
the
village,
in
brief
it
is
a
measure
for
granting
the
subjects
their
majority,
which
measures
the
progressive
party,
any
bourgeois
party
in
the
opposition
in
Prussia,
if
it
is
not
insane,
could
sooner
grant
a
hundred
times
than
the
Government
of
Bismarck.”
Here
again
Lassalle’s
outlook
is
criticised
for
its
submissive
attitude
towards
Bismarck
and
the
feudal
nobility,
for
failure
to
understand
the
anti-feudal
democratic
role
of
the
right
of
association.
Marx
gives
a
classic
definition
of
sect
while
discussing
the
Lassallean
organisation.
Writing
to
Schweitser
in
October
1868,
he
says,
“Just
because
he
(Lassalle)
is
the
founder
of
a
sect
he
denied
all
natural
connection
with
the
former
labour
movement
in
Germany.
He
made
the
same
mistakes
as
Proudhon,
of
seeking
the
genuine
basis
for
his
agitation
not
among
the
real
elements
of
the
class
movement,
but
of
wanting
to
prescribe
to
the
latter
its
course
according
to
a
certain
doctrinaire
recipe.
“You
yourself
have
observed
the
contrast
between
sectarian
movement
and
a
class
movement.
The
sect
views
its
raison
d’
etre
(reason
for
existence)
and
its
point
d’honneur
(point
of
honour)
not
in
what
it
has
in
common
with
the
class
movement,
but
in
a
special
shibboleth
that
distinguishes
if
from
his
movement.”
“(Selected
Correspondence,
p.
251)
The
question
of
trade
unions
was
again
taken
up
by
Marx
in
connection
with
his
criticism
of
the
Gotha
Programme.
In
1875,
a
unity
congress
between
the
Lassalleans
and
Eissenachs
was
held
in
Gotha.
Marx
analysed
the
draft
programme
and
sharply
attacked
it
for
compromising
with
Lassallean
principle.
“Since
Lassalle’s
death
there
has
been
asserted
itself
in
our
party
the
scientific
understanding
that
wages
are
not
what
they
appear
to
be,
the
value
pr
price,
of
labour,
but
only
a
masked
form
of
the
value
or
price,
of
labour
power.
Thereby
the
whole
bourgeois
conception
of
wages
hitherto,
as
well
as
all
the
criticism
hitherto
directed
against
this
conception,
was
thrown
overboard
once
for
all
and
it
was
made
clear
that
the
wage
workers
has
permission
to
work
for
his
own
subsistence,
that
is,
to
live,
only
in
so
far
as
he
works
for
a
certain
time
gratis
for
the
capitalist
(and
hence
for
the
latter’s
co-consumers
of
surplus
value)…
And
after
this
understanding
has
gained
more
and
more
ground
in
our
party,
one
returns
to
Lassalle’s
dogmas,
although
one
must
have
known
that
Lassalle
did
not
know
what
wages
were,
but
following
in
the
wake
of
the
bourgeois
economists
took
the
appearance
for
the
essence
of
the
matter.”(Selected
works,
Vol.
2,
pp.
23-24)
Marx
sharply
attacked
the
ridiculous
talk
about
state
aid
for
producers’
cooperatives
leading
to
socialism.
“Instead
of
arising
from
the
revolutionary
process
of
transformation
of
society,
‘the
socialist
organisations
of
total
labour’
‘arises’
from
the
‘state
aid’
that
the
state
gives
to
the
producers’
cooperative
societies
and
which
the
state,
not
the
worker,
‘calls
into
being’.
It
is
worthy
of
Lassalle’s
imagination
that
with
the
state
loans
one
can
build
a
new
society
just
as
well
as
a
new
railway…
That
the
workers
desire
to
establish
the
conditions
for
cooperative
production
on
a
social
scale,
first
of
all
on
a
national
scale,
in
their
own
country.
Only
means
that
they
are
working
to
revolutionise
the
present
conditions
of
production,
and
it
has
nothing
in
common
with
the
foundation
of
the
cooperative
societies
with
state
aid.
But
as
far
as
the
present
cooperative
societies
are
concerned
they
are
of
value
only
in
so
far
as
they
are
independent
creations
of
the
workers
and
not
protégés
either
of
the
Government
or
of
the
bourgeoisie.”
(pp.24-25)
Marx
criticised
the
programme
for
its
total
underestimation
of
the
trade
union
struggle.
“There
is
not
a
word
said
about
the
organisation
of
the
working
class
as
a
class,
by
means
of
trade
unions.
This
is
a
very
essential
point,
for
this
is
the
real
class
organisation
of
the
proletariat,
in
which
it
carries
on
its
daily
struggles
with
capital;
in
which
it
trains
itself,
and
which
nowadays
even
amid
the
worst
reaction
(as
now
in
Paris
at
present)
can
simply
no
longer
be
knocked
to
pieces.
Considering
the
importance
which
this
organisation
has
attained
also
in
Germany,
it
would
be
absolutely
necessary
in
our
opinion
to
make
mention
of
them
in
the
programme
and
of
possible
to
leave
open
a
place
for
them
in
the
organisation
of
the
Party.”
(Vol.
2
p.
34,
emphasis
added)
It
will
be
seen
that
Lassalle
gave
a
reformist
twist
to
the
genuine
desire
of
the
working
class
to
reorganise
social
production,
though
at
the
mercy
of
the
bourgeois
state;
that
he
adopted
the
arguments
of
the
bourgeois
economists
to
oppose
the
actual
class
struggle
of
the
working
class,
the
strikes,
and
in
the
name
of
the
political
party
of
the
working
class
he
tried
to
eliminate
the
trade
unions.
His
next
move
was
that
the
formed
a
political
party
of
the
working
class,
but
it
had
a
wrong
outlook,
a
wrong
direction
and
a
totally
wrong
understanding
about
the
important
organisations
of
the
working
class,
the
trade
unions.
Struggle
Against
Bakunin
But
there
was
an
equally
harmful
tendency
working
in
the
opposite
direction.
It
wanted
the
working
class
and
the
trade
unions
to
abjure
all
politics,
opposed
the
formation
of
a
political
party
and
relied
exclusively
on
trade
union
action
to
achieve
the
desired
change
in
he
social
order.
This
trend
is
association
with
Bakunin,
a
revolutionary
figure
no
doubt.
He
was
he
ideologist
of
anarchism
and
a
sworn
opponent
of
Marxism.
He
waged
a
continuous
factional
struggle
against
the
First
International
led
by
Marx
and
was
expelled
from
the
International
at
the
Hague
Congress
(1872).
Marx
in
his
letter
to
F
Bolte,
dated
November
23,
1871,
sums
up
Bakunin
as
follows:
“His
programme
was
a
hash
superficially
scraped
together
from
the
Right
and
from
the
Left-equality
of
Classes
(!),
abolition
of
the
right
of
inheritance
as
the
starting
point
of
the
social
movement
(St.
Simonist
nonsense),
atheism
as
a
dogma
dictated
to
the
members,
etc.,
as
the
main
dogma
(Proudhonist):
abstention
from
the
political
movement.
“This
is
children’s
primer
found
favour
(and
still
has
a
certain
hold)
in
Italy
and
Spain,
where
the
real
conditions
for
the
workers’
movement
are
as
yet
little
developed,
and
among
a
few
vain,
ambitions,
and
empty
doctrinaires
in
Latin
Switserland
and
in
Belgium.”
(Marx-Engels,
Selected
Works,
Vol.
2,
p.
423)
Commenting
on
the
demand
“equality
of
classes”,
Marx
in
a
letter
to
Engels
(March
5,
1869)
says,
“The
‘equalisation
of
classes;
literally
interpreted
is
nothing
but
another
way
of
saying
the
‘harmony
of
capital
and
labour’
preached
by
the
bourgeois
socialists,
Not
the
logically
impossible
‘equalisation
of
classes’
but
the
historically
necessary
‘abolition
of
classes’
constitutes
the
final
aim
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association.”
(Ibid.
page
266)
Engels
explains
Bakunin’s
anarchist
theory
leading
to
abstention
from
politics
as
follows:
“Banunin
has
a
peculiar
theory
of
his
own,
a
medley
of
Proudhonism
and
Communism.
The
chief
point
regarding
the
former
is
that
he
does
not
regard
capital,
i.e.,
the
class
antagonism
between
capitalists
and
wageworkers,
which
has
arisen
through
social
development
but
the
state
as
the
main
evil
to
be
abolished.
While
the
great
mass
of
the
social-democratic
workers
hold
our
view
that
state
power
is
nothing
more
than
the
organisation
which
the
ruling
classes-landowners
and
capitalists-have
provided
for
themselves
in
order
to
protect
their
privileges,
Bakunin
maintains
that
it
is
the
state
that
has
created
capital,
that
the
capitalist
has
his
capital
only
by
the
grace
of
the
state…
The
difference
is
an
essential
one.
Without
a
previous
social
revolution,
the
abolition
of
the
state
is
nonsense;
the
abolition
of
capital
is
precisely
the
social
revolution
and
invokes
a
change
in
the
mode
of
social
production.
Now
then
as
to
Bakunin
the
state
is
the
main
evil,
nothing
must
be
done
which
can
keep
the
state-that
is,
any
state
whether
it
be
a
republic
or
monarchy
or
anything
else
alive.
Hence
complete
abstention
from
politics.
To
commit
a
political
act,
to
participate
in
an
election,
would
be
a
betrayal
of
principles.
The
thing
to
do
is
to
carry
on
propaganda,
heap
abuse
upon
the
state,
organise
and
when
all
the
workers,
hence
the
majority,
are
won
over,
depose
all
the
authorities,
abolish
the
state
and
replace
it
with
the
organisation
of
the
International.”
(Ibid,
p.
334)
Bakunin
considered
the
workers
to
be
ignorant.
He
did
not
see
classes.
He
talked
about
the
people,
the
laborers,
etc.
His
left
talks
ended
in
abjuration
of
all
politics
by
the
working
class
and
absolutisation
and
crude
glorification
of
the
trade
union
struggle.
According
to
his
line,
the
working
class
must
abjure
all
political
actions
and
struggle
and
concentrate
on
practical
demands
and
this
will
one
day
produce
a
social
revolution.
There
was
no
question
of
capturing
political
power.
Political
power
was
to
be
abolished
immediately
through
economic
struggle.
In
his
pamphlet,
Policy
of
the
International,
Bakunin
writes:
“The
Emancipation
of
the
workers
is
the
cause
of
the
workers
themselves
which
is
emphasised
in
the
introducing
to
our
statutes.
However,
the
workers
in
most
cases
are
ignorant,
they
still
do
not
know
theory.
Consequently
they
have
only
one
path
left,
the
path
of
practical
emancipation.
And
what
should
and
must
this
practice
be?
It
can
be
only
one:
the
struggle
based
on
the
solidarity
of
the
workers
against
the
bosses;
that
is
trade
unions,
organisations
and
federations
of
resistance
fund
societies.
“Rejecting,
in
accordance
with
its
statutes,
all
politics
on
a
local
as
well
as
national
scale,
the
International
will
impart
to
the
workers’
agitational
activities
in
all
countries
an
exclusively
economic
character,
setting
the
goal
shorten
working
hours
and
increase
wages,
using
as
a
means
the
consolidation
of
the
working
masses
and
the
organised
collection
of
resistance
funds.”
Marx
who
had
understood
the
class
nature
of
the
coming
revolution,
the
need
to
establish
the
state
of
the
working
class,
waged
an
irreconcilable
fight
against
Bakunin’s
crudities.
Bakunin
saw
in
the
trade
unions
an
amalgamation
of
ignorant
people
rather
than
the
shaping
of
the
modern
revolutionary
class.
The
foundation
of
British
socialism
was
laid
by
Owen.
Marx
and
Engels
highly
appreciated
as
they
appreciated
Saint
Simon
and
Fourier.
Engels
in
Socialism:
Utopian
and
Scientific
writes
about
Owen:
“A
refomer,
a
manufacture
20
years
old,
a
man
of
almost
sublime,
simplicity
of
character,
and
at
the
same
time
one
of
the
few
born
leaders
of
men.”
Owen
“worked
out
his
proposals
for
the
removal
of
class
distinctions
systematically
and
indirect
relation
to
French
materialism.”
Unlike
Saint
Simon
and
Fourier,
Owen
threw
himself
heart
and
soul
into
the
proletarian
movement.
Nevertheless,
he
remained
a
pacifist
utopian
and
refused
to
take
part
in
revolutionary
activity.
English
socialism
which
arose
with
Owen
“therefore
proceeds
with
great
consideration
towards
the
bourgeoisie
and
injustice
towards
the
proletariat
in
its
methods
although
it
culminates
in
demanding
the
abilities
of
the
class
antagonism
between
the
bourgeoisie
and
the
proletariat.”
(“Condition
of
the
Working
Class
in
England,”
Collected
Works,
Vol.
4,
p.
552)
Engels,
considered
necessary
to
link
up
the
socialists
with
the
Chartists-the
authentic
proletarians.
Once
again
it
was
the
same
problem
of
linking
socialism
with
the
actual
political
movement
of
the
working
class.
Britain
was
the
cradle
of
the
trade
union
movement.
Marx
and
Engels
paid
close
attention
to
the
movement
here
criticising
its
mistakes.
They
attached
great
importance
to
the
struggle
for
improving
the
conditions
of
the
workers
considering
that
the
condition
of
the
working
class
is
the
real
basis
and
starting
point
for
all
social
movement.
They
saw
the
narrow
craft
character
of
the
trade
unions,
their
narrow
outlook.
In
Condition
of
the
Working
Class
in
England,
Engels
observes,
“Something
more
is
needed
than
trade
unions
and
strikes
to
break
the
power
of
the
ruling
class.
But
what
gives
these
unions
and
the
strikes
arising
from
them
their
importance
is
this,
that
they
are
the
first
attempt
of
the
workers
to
abolish
competition.
They
imply
the
recognition
of
the
fact
that
the
supremacy
of
the
bourgeoisie
is
based
wholly
upon
the
competition
of
the
workers
among
themselves,
i.e.,
upon
their
want
of
the
cohesion….
The
working
man
cannot
attack
the
bourgeoisie
and
with
it
the
whole
existing
order
of
society,
at
any
surer
point
than
this.”
In
his
dispute
with
Weston,
the
British
Owentie,
Marx
laid
his
finger
on
the
weakness
of
the
British
trade
unions
which
concentrated
only
on
daily
struggles
and
partial
demands.
“At
the
same
time
and
quite
apart
from
the
general
servitude
involved
in
the
wages
system,
the
working
of
these
everyday
struggle.
They
ought
not
to
forget
that
they
are
fighting
with
effects
and
not
with
the
causes
of
these
effects…
They
ought,
therefore,
not
to
be
exclusively
absorbed
in
these
unavoidable
guerrilla
fights
necessarily
springing
from
the
never0ceasing
encroachments
of
capital
…
Instead
of
the
conservative
motto
‘A
fair
day’s
wage
for
a
fair
day’s
work’
they
ought
to
inscribe
on
their
banner
the
revolutionary
watchword
“Abolition
of
the
wage
system”.
(“Wages,
Price
and
profit”,
Selected
Works,
Vol.
2,
p.75)
Even
in
Britain,
Marx
had
to
contend
against
the
viewpoint
that
wage-rise
only
increase
the
price
level
and
leads
to
no
improvement
in
the
condition
of
the
workers.
The
question
was
raised
by
Weston.
A
discussion
was
organised
by
the
General
Council
of
the
International
Weston
argued
that
a
wage-rise
cannot
be
of
any
advantage
to
the
workers;
therefore
trade
unions
have
a
harmful
effect.
Marx
was
asked
to
reply
to
Weston.
Marx
had
to
give
a
scientific
and
substantiated
reply
to
this
bourgeois
theory.
He
explained
how
surplus
value
is
created
and
because
of
its
existence
an
increase
in
wage,
a
general
rise
in
the
rate
of
wages
need
not
affect
the
prices
of
commodities
but
result
in
a
fall
in
the
rate
of
the
profit.
He
had
to
give
a
theoretical
substantiation
of
the
effectiveness
of
the
trade
union
movement.
The
downward
path
of
the
movement
continued
and
the
trade
unions
on
principle
rejected
politics
and
politically
the
working
class
itself
to
once
of
the
two
bourgeois
parties.
Engels
in
his
letter
to
Bernstein
notes
this:
“The
trade
unions
exclude
on
principle
and
by
virtue
of
their
statutes,
all
political
action
and
also
the
participation
in
the
general
activity
of
the
working
class
as
a
class.
The
workers
are
divided
politically
into
conservates
and
liberal
radicals…”
Engels
understood
the
root
cause
of
this
degradation:
“Participation
in
the
domination
for
the
world
market
was
and
is
the
economic
basis
of
the
political
nullity
of
the
British
workers.
Dragging
along
at
the
tail-end
of
the
bourgeoisie
in
the
economic
exploitation
of
the
this
monopoly
but
always
sharing
in
its
profits
they
naturally,
from
the
political
point
of
view,
drag
along
at
the
tail-end
of
the
‘great
Liberal
Party’
which
has
thrown
them
some
small
sops,
recognises
trade
unions
and
the
right
to
strike
gave
up
the
struggle
for
the
unlimited
working
day
and
gave
the
bulk
of
the
higher
paid
workers
the
right
to
rule.”
Marx
and
Engels
also
noted
the
development
of
the
trade
unions
in
the
USA
and
tried
to
correct
the
mistaken
policies
adopted
there.
In
1866,
Marx
in
a
letter
to
Kugelmann
expressed
his
satisfaction
that
the
American
Workers’
Congress
at
Baltimore
adopted
the
slogan
of
organisation
for
the
struggle
against
capital.
“Remarkably
enough
most
of
the
demands
which
I
drew
up
for
Geneva
were
also
put
forward
by
the
right
instinct
of
the
workers,”
(Selected
Correspondence,
page
223)
In
December
1866,
in
another
latter,
Marx
noted
that
the
Congress
of
American
Labour
Union
treated
working
women
with
complete
equality,
“while
in
this
respect
the
English
and
still
more
the
gallant
French,
are
burdened
with
a
spirit
of
narrow-mindedness.
Anybody
who
knows
anything
of
history
knows
that
great
social
changes
are
impossible
without
the
feminine
ferment.”
When
after
the
dissolution
of
the
International,
sectarianism
arose
in
the
United
States,
Engels
intervened
to
against
it
and,
in
a
letter
to
Mrs.
Wischenwtsky,
explained
that
the
principle
task
was
to
struggle
against
sectarianism;
that
work
must
be
carried
on
in
workers’
and
mass
organisations.
He
advised
that
the
knights
of
Labour
organisation
should
not
be
pooh-poohed
from
without,
but
be
revolutionised
from
within.
“To
expect
the
American
to
start
with
the
full
consciousness
of
the
theory
worked
in
older
industrial
countries
is
to
task
for
the
impossible.”
At
the
Geneva
Congress
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association
Marx
explained
in
full
his
scientific
understanding
about
the
trade
union
movement.
The
Congress
endorsed
it
and
gave
the
world
working
class
a
correct
outlook
regarding
the
role
of
the
trade
union
in
its
class
struggle.
Marx
positively
repudiates
the
reactionary
and
absurd
views
of
his
contemporaries,
which
failed
to
see
the
trade
union
movement
as
the
practical
class
struggle
of
the
working
class
in
its
initial
stage.
He
says
these
organisations
start
from
the
spontaneous
attempts
of
workers
to
abolish
competition
among
themselves
and
protect
their
daily
interests.
But
this
attempt
to
abolish
competition
among
individual
workers
soon
turns
them
into
the
focus
of
class
organisation;
Marx
likens
them
to
medieval
guilds
and
communes,
which
were
weapons
of
political
struggle
of
the
bourgeoisie
against
feudalism.
Regarding
the
past
of
the
trade
unions,
the
draft
prepared
by
Marx
says,
“Trade
unions
originally
sprang
up
from
the
spontaneous
attempts
of
workmen
at
removing
or
at
least
checking
that
competition…
The
immediate
activity
of
the
trade
unions
was
therefore
confined
to
everyday
necessities…
This
activity
of
the
trade
unions
is
not
only
legitimate,
it
is
necessary-on
the
contrary,
it
must
be
generalised
by
the
formation
and
the
combination
of
trade
unions
throughout
the
country.
On
the
other
hand,
unconsciously
to
themselves,
the
trade
unions
were
forming
centers
of
organisation
of
the
working
class,
as
he
medieval
municipalities
and
communes
did
for
the
middle
class.
If
the
trade
unions
are
required
for
the
guerilla
fights
between
capital
and
labour,
they
are
still
more
important
as
organised
agencies
for
superseding
the
very
system
of
wage
labour
and
capitalist
rule.”
(Selected
Works,
vol.
2,
pp.
82-83)
But
then
Marx
knew
that
this
was
far
from
the
consciousness
prevailing
in
the
movement.
He
therefore
characterises
the
present
of
the
trade
union
movement
in
the
following
words,
delineating
its
weaknesses.
“Their
present.
Too
exclusively
bent
upon
the
local
immediate
struggles
with
capital,
the
trades’
unions
have
not
yet
fully
understood
their
power
of
acting
against
the
system
of
wages
slavery
itself.
They
therefore
kept
too
much
aloof
from
the
general
social
and
political
movements.
Of
late,
however,
they
seem
to
awaken
to
some
sense
of
their
historical
mission
as
appears,
for
instance
from
their
participation,
in
England,
in
the
recent
political
movement…”
(Selected
Works,
vol.
2,
p.
83)
Asking
them
to
overcome
these
weaknesses
and
breaking
through
the
narrow
framework
of
daily
economic
struggle
Marx
calls
on
them
to
take
a
new
course
for
the
future.
“Their
future.
“Apart
from
their
original
purposes,
they
must
now
learn
to
act
deliberately
as
organising
centers
of
the
working
class
in
the
broad
interest
of
its
complete
emancipation.
They
must
aid
every
social
and
political
movement
leading
in
that
direction.
Considering
themselves
and
acting
as
the
champions
and
representatives
of
the
whole
working
class,
they
cannot
fail
to
enlist
the
non-society
men
into
their
ranks.
They
must
look
carefully
after
the
interests
of
the
worst
paid
trades,
such
as
the
agricultural
workers
rendered
powerless
by
exceptional
circumstances.
They
must
convince
the
world
at
large
that
their
efforts,
far
from
being
narrow
and
selfish,
aim
at
the
emancipation
of
downtrodden
millions”
(Ibid,
p.
83)
this
advice
guided
the
revolutionary
trade
union
movement
since
the
days
of
Marx.
It
armed
it
to
fight
the
invasion
of
reformism
and
revisionism
in
the
trade
union
movement.
The
reformists
precisely
forgot
the
aim
of
abolition
of
wage
slavery,
delinked
the
trade
union
movement
from
the
struggle
for
socialism
and
turned
it
into
an
inward
looking
movement-seeking
gains
for
its
members.
Since
the
days
of
Marx
the
struggle
inside
the
trade
union
movement
centered
round
the
place
and
role
of
the
trade
unions
in
the
general
class
struggle
of
the
proletariat.
For
decades
in
Europe,
the
labour
aristocracy
bought
by
concessions
arising
from
the
colonial
loot
of
the
colonies,
tied
down
the
trade
union
movement
to
parliamentarism,
to
activity
within
the
framework
of
the
capitalist
system.
After
Marx,
Lenin
waged
an
irreconcilable
struggle
against
the
betrayal
by
trade
union
bureaucrats
and
reformist
social
democratic
leaders.
Marx’s
advice
and
guidance
is
equally
sound
for
the
trade
union
movement
in
India
which
stands
imprisoned
in
the
economic
struggle,
is
often
unable
to
see
beyond
its
factory
or
industry
and
has
shown
its
incapacity
to
intervene
in
political
matters,
matters
affecting
democracy
and
the
unity
of
the
country.
Its
weakness
regarding
the
defence
of
the
peasantry
and
agricultural
workers
is
equally
well
known.
The
efforts
to
fight
this
well-known
disease
are
there
but
they
have
to
be
multiplied
many
times
to
bring
the
movement
in
line
with
Marx’s
teachings.
What
does
Marx
say
in
the
last
part?
(1)
Trade
Unions
should
continue
to
defend
the
daily
interests
of
the
workers;
(2)
but
at
the
same
time
they
must
act
as
a
conscious
center
working
for
the
emancipation
of
the
working
class;
(3)
for
this
purpose
every
social
and
political
movement
“tending”
in
that
direction
should
be
aided;
(4)
they
are
champions
of
the
entire
class
and
should
not
form
themselves
into
closed
corporate
bodies
only
of
their
members,
shutting
out
non
members;
(5)
it
is
their
duty
help
organise
those
who
cannot
organise
themselves
easily
and
protect
the
interests
of
the
worst-paid
trades
like
the
agricultural
workers;
(9)
by
their
action
they
must
show
that
they
are
not
using
their
organised
strength
only
to
guard
their
interests,
but
working
for
all
the
downtrodden
millions.
Marx
not
only
laid
down
the
general
line
for
the
trade
union
struggle
at
the
Geneva
Congress,
but
he
also
suggested
concrete
immediate
demands
for
the
trade
unions.
He
demanded
limitation
of
the
working
day
to
eight
hours.
“This
limitation
being
generally
claimed
by
the
workmen
of
the
United
States
of
America,
the
role
of
the
Congress
will
raise
it
to
the
common
platform
of
the
working
classes
all
over
the
world.”
(Selected
Works,
Vol.
2,
p.
79)
It
was
further
demanded
that
women
should
be
rigorously
excluded
from
all
night
work
whatsoever
and
all
shorts
of
work
hurtful
to
the
delicacy
of
the
sex,
and
exposing
their
bodies
to
poisons
and
deleterious
should
be
prohibited.
Marx
also
proposed
and
the
Congress
adopted
restrictions
on
the
use
of
juvenile
labour
of
both
sexes.
It
was
demanded
that
the
employment
of
all
persons
from
9
to
17
years
(inclusive)
in
night
work
and
all
health-injuring
centers
should
be
prohibited
by
law.
It
was
also
demanded
that
children
of
9
to
12
years
of
age
should
not
be
employed
in
workshops
or
housework
for
more
than
two
hours
those
between
13
to
15
should
not
be
employed
for
more
than
four
hours
and
those
between
15
to
17
should
not
be
employed
for
more
than
six
hours,
with
a
break
of
at
least
one
hour
for
meals
or
relaxation.
Marx
suggested
a
statistical
enquiry
into
the
situation
of
the
working
classes
of
all
countries.
He
prepared
a
detailed
questionnaire
calling
for
information
on
(1)
salaries
and
wages;
(a)
apprentices;
(b)
wages
by
the
day
or
piecework;
(c)
scales
paid
by
middlemen.
Weekly,
yearly
average.
(2)
Hours
of
work:
(a)
in
factories;
(b)
the
hours
of
work
with
small
employs
and
in
home
work,
if
the
business
be
carried
on
in
these
different
modes;
(c)
night
work
had
day
work,
(3)
Meal
times
and
treatment.
(4)
Sort
of
workshop
and
work:
overcrowding,
defective,
ventilation,
want
of
sunlight,
use
of
gaslight,
cleanliness,
etc.
(5)
Nature
of
occupation.
(6)
Effect
of
employment
on
physical
condition.
(7)
Moral
condition;
education.
Marx
attached
importance
to
the
struggle
for
partial
demands
and
the
success
secured
by
the
working
class.
He
saw
in
these
the
intensification
of
the
workers’
struggle,
the
growing
consciousness
of
their
rights.
In
their
success
he
saw
the
defeat
of
bourgeois
policies
and
bourgeois
theories
and
a
source
of
further
confidence
to
the
workers.
He
showed
that
the
various
factory
legislation
in
England
were
the
direct
product
of
the
class
struggle
of
the
working
class
which
forced
a
retreat
on
the
methods
of
unbridled
exploitation
prevailing
till
then.
When
the
British
working
class
succeeded
in
carrying
the
Ten
Hours’
Bill
in
Parliament
Marx
wrote:
“Hence
the
Ten
Hours’
Bill
was
not
only
a
great
success,
it
was
the
victory
of
a
principle
it
was
the
first
that
in
broad
daylight
the
political
economy
of
the
middle
class
succumbed
to
the
political
economy
of
the
working
class.”
Proletarian
Internationalism
The
international
Working
Men’s
Association
led
by
Marx
sowed
the
seeds
of
proletarian
internationalism
among
the
European
workers.
It
taught
them
the
necessity
of
working
class
solidarity
stretching
beyond
national
frontiers,
the
international
unity
of
their
struggle
against
capital,
and
the
necessity
of
helping
each
other
in
daily
struggles.
As
part
of
its
daily
activities
it
collected
funds
for
strikes
in
different
countries
and
strengthened
this
unity.
It
did
everything
possible
to
unite
the
trade
union
movement
in
different
countries
under
the
common
banner
of
international
and
class
solidarity.
The
First
Address
on
the
French
–
Prussian
War
said:
“The
English
working
class
stretch
the
hand
of
fellowship
to
the
French
and
German
working
people.
They
feel
deeply
convinced
that
whatever
turn
the
impending
horrid
war
may
take,
all
alliance
of
the
working
classes
of
all
countries
will
ultimately
kill
war.
The
very
fact
that
while
official
France
and
Germany
are
rushing
into
a
fratricidal
feud,
the
workmen
of
France
and
Germany
send
each
other
messages
of
peace
and
goodwill;
this
great
fact,
unparalleled
in
the
history
of
the
past,
opens
the
vista
of
a
brighter
future.
It
proves
that
in
contrast
to
old
society,
with
its
economical
miseries
and
its
political
delirium,
a
new
society
is
springing
up,
whose
International
rule
will
be
Peace,
because
its
national
ruler
will
be
everywhere
the
same-Labour.
The
pioneer
of
that
new
society
is
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association.”
(Selected
Works,
Vol.2,
pp.
193-93)
Deeply
influenced
by
the
internationalism
taught
by
the
Association
the
French
members
of
the
Association
reacting
to
the
war
issued
a
manifesto
“to
the
workmen
of
all
nations”
in
which
they
said,
“Brothers
of
Germany;
our
divisions
would
only
result
in
the
complete
triumph
of
despotism
on
both
sides
of
the
Rhine…
Workmen
of
all
countries
whatever
may
for
the
present
become
of
our
common
efforts,
we,
the
members
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association,
who
know
of
no
frontiers,
we
send
you
as
a
pledge
of
indissoluble
solidarity
the
good
wishes
and
salutations
of
the
workmen
of
France.”
(Ibid,
p.
191)
Marx’s
call
internationalism
had
inspired
thousands
of
workers.
It
was
becoming
a
part
of
working
class
consciousness.
Since
then
this
heritage
has
been
carried
forward
by
the
revolutionary
trade
union
movement
following
the
Marxist-
Leninist
path.
Lenin
waged
struggles
for
years
on
behalf
of
proletarian
international
sharply
attacking
the
trade
union
and
social-democratic
leaders
who
supported
their
respective
governments
during
the
First
World
War.
The
Communist
International
and
the
Communist
Parties
upheld
the
banner
and
strove
to
internationally
unite
the
proletarian
ranks.
During
the
Second
World
War,
again
social
democratic
vacillated,
refusing
to
take
a
firm
position
by
the
side
of
the
Soviet
Union
and
the
world
working
class.
Today
with
the
existence
of
the
socialist
camp
and
the
World
Federation
of
Trade
Unions,
the
sense
of
internationalism
is
very
strong
and
is
able
to
counter
the
moves
of
the
imperialists.
Nonetheless
the
war
danger
is
increasing
and
it
cannot
be
said
that
all
the
detachments
of
the
world
trade
union
movement
are
upholding
the
banner.
Lack
of
international
outlook,
indifference
to
world
developments
and
the
struggles
of
world
working
class
are
a
major
weakness
of
India’s
trade
union
movement,
taken
as
a
whole.
This
was
natural
in
a
country,
which
for
decades
was
enslaved
and
had
to
concentrate
on
national
emancipation.
But
since
then
four
decades
have
passed
and
there
is
hardly
any
progress.
On
the
contrary,
forces
rousing
national
chauvinism,
preaching
indifference
to
the
world
outside,
openly
opposing
proletarian
internationalism
are
very
active.
This
also
suits
the
interests
of
the
ruling
classes
and
ruling
party,
which
would
like
the
Indian
people
to
be
sheltered
from
all
revolutionary
influence.
The
situation
obtains
notwithstanding
the
friendly
relations
between
the
people
and
the
government
of
the
Indian
Union
and
the
socialist
countries
and
the
valuable
aid
rendered
by
the
USSR
in
building
the
Indian
economy.
And
because
of
this
India’s
trade
union
movement
is
unable
to
speak
with
one
voice
on
the
question
of
war
and
peace
exposing
the
US
warmongers
and
supporting
the
peace
policy
of
the
USSR
and
the
socialist
camp.
The
Internationalism
of
the
International
Working
Men’s
Association,
its
influence
over
trade
unions
and
its
growing
help
to
strikes,
all
earned
for
it
cures,
slanders
and
vilification
from
the
capitalists
and
their
government.
Strikes,
the
Paris
Commune,
everything
was
blamed
on
the
International
which
only
showed
that
the
power
and
strength
of
the
first
international
association
of
workers
had
started
frightening
the
bourgeoisie.
Political
Party
Of
The
Working
Class
At
the
Hague
Congress
in
1872,
Marx
succeeded
in
getting
the
congress
sanction
for
a
political
party
of
the
working
class.
Through
the
activities
of
the
International
he
had
already
succeeded
in
merging
the
various
sects
in
the
actual
movement
the
working
class-the
trade
unions-and
assigning
a
correct
revolutionary
role
to
them
in
the
emancipatory
struggle
of
the
working
class.
Time
was
now
ripe
for
an
open
class
party
of
the
working
class,
taking
a
stand
on
its
class
outlook
and
determined
to
fight
the
exploiting
classes.
A
new
article
7a
was
included
in
the
rules
of
the
General
Council.
It
said,
“In
its
struggle
against
the
collective
power
of
the
possessing
classes
the
proletariat
can
act
as
a
class
only
by
constituting
itself
into
a
distinct
political
party
opposed
to
all
the
political
parties
by
the
possessing
classes.
“This
constitution
of
the
proletariat
into
a
political
party
is
indispensable
to
ensure
the
triumph
of
the
social
revolution
and
of
its
ultimate
goal:
the
abolition
of
classes.”
The
coalition
of
the
forces
of
the
working
class,
already
achieved
by
the
economic
struggle,
must
also
serve
in
the
hands
of
this
class
as
a
lever
in
its
struggle
against
the
political
power
of
its
exploiters.
“As
the
lords
of
the
land
and
capital
always
make
use
of
their
political
privileges
to
defend
and
perpetuate
their
economic
monopolies
and
to
enslave
labour,
the
conquest
of
political
power
becomes
the
great
duty
of
the
proletariat.”
The
unity
already
achieved
in
the
economic
struggle-the
trade
unions-must
serve
as
a
lever
in
the
struggle
against
the
political
power
of
the
exploiters.
Marx
showed
the
fundamental
path
to
be
followed
by
the
trade
unions.
But
it
did
not
mean
that
the
majority
of
the
trade
unions
and
their
leaders
had
fully
accepted
the
line
and
that
there
were
not
problems
to
be
faced.
These
problems
appeared
in
new
forms
in
the
European
movement,
which
abandoned
its
partiality
for
producers’
associations
and
neglect
of
trade
union
struggle,
but
continued
with
excessive
and
exclusive
faith
in
the
struggle
of
the
moment,
the
struggle
for
immediate
demands.
Engels
already
noted
the
basis
for
this
reformism
in
his
comment
on
the
British
trade
unions.
Lenin
with
his
penetrating
of
the
stage
of
imperialism
again
showed
how
a
section
of
labour-the
labour
aristocracy-was
corrupted
in
the
“comparatively
peaceful
period”
of
capitalism
which
could
accommodate
the
workers
with
some
concessions
and
some
democratic
rights
and
parliamentary
privileges.
Lenin
traced
the
collapse
of
the
Second
International
in
the
First
World
War
to
this
corruption,
which
led
to
class
collaboration,
and
adjuration
of
proletarian
internationalism
and
support
to
imperialist
war.
Lenin
found
the
same
problems
both
in
Russia
and
Europe,
though
sometimes
their
forms
changed.
Now
the
battle
for
the
political
role
and
tasks
of
the
trade
unions
was
centred
round
the
relationship
between
the
political
party
of
the
working
class
and
its
mass
organisation,
the
unions.
It
was
the
same
old
problem
of
the
trade
devoting
exclusive
attention
to
their
daily
work
and
brooking
no
interference
from
outside.
Continuation
Of
The
Struggle
By
Lenin
Lenin’s
fight
against
the
neutrality
of
trade
unions
towards
the
socialist
party,
his
fight
against
spontaneity
and
economism,
his
fight
against
ignoring
the
mass
character
of
the
trade
unions,
his
demand
that
communists
should
work
in
reactionary
unions
were
all
part
of
the
fight
that
had
to
be
continued
against
reformists
and
sectarian
deviations,
against
those
who
sought
to
divide
the
trade
union
struggle
from
the
political
struggle
of
the
working
class
against
those
who
underestimated
the
role
of
the
trade
unions.
Lenin
developed
the
Marxist
concept
of
the
political
party
of
the
working
class.
The
party
is
the
vaguard
of
the
class,
its
highest
political
organisation
which
guides
all
other
organisation.
This
understanding
was
gradually
imparted
to
the
working
class.
But
Lenin
had
to
fight
for
recognition
of
this
correct
understanding
step
by
step.
In
his
time,
the
question
of
the
relationship
between
the
party
and
the
trade
union
organisation
became
prominent
in
the
international
movement.
Lenin
opposed
the
neutrality
of
trade
unions
towards
socialist
parties.
The
Stockholm
RSDLP
Congress
voted
for
non-party
unions
and
endorsed
of
neutrality.
Lenin
described
it
as
the
view
of
Bernsteinians.
The
London
Congress
of
the
party,
on
the
other
hand,
declared
for
closer
alignment
of
the
unions
with
the
party.
The
International
Socialist
Congress
in
Stuttgart
endorsed
the
view
and
voted
for
closer
and
stronger
connections
between
the
unions
and
the
socialist
parties.
Lenin
endorsing
the
Stuttgart
stand
says
that
the
resolution
lays
down
the
general
principle
that
in
every
country
the
unions
must
be
brought
into
permanent
and
close
contact
with
the
socialist
party.
He
adds,
“We
note
that
the
harmful
aspects
of
the
neutrality
were
revealed
in
Stuttgart
by
the
fact
that
the
trade
union
half
of
the
German
delegation
were
the
most
adamant
supporters
of
opportunist
view.”
(Collected
Works,
Vol.
13,
pp.
78-79).
What
was
the
Party
to
do?
The
draft
resolution
on
the
economic
struggle
for
the
Second
Congress
of
the
RSDLP
(1903)
stated,
“The
Congress
deems
it
absolutely
essential
in
all
cases
to
support
and
develop
in
every
way
the
economic
struggle
of
the
workers
and
their
trade
unions
(principally
the
all
–
Russian
unions)
and
from
the
very
outset
to
ensure
that
the
economic
struggle
and
the
trade
union
movement
in
Russia
have
a
social-democratic
character.
(Emphasis
added).
(This
last
phrase
is
nothing
but
ensuring
the
guidance
of
the
Party
for
linking
the
trade
unions
with
the
revolutionary
political
struggle.)
(Collected
Works,
vol.
6,
p.
473)
In
Russia
the
Social-Democratic
Party
was
formed
before
the
workers’
mass
trade
unions
came
into
existence.
It
was
important
for
the
Party
to
take
a
correct
stand
towards
the
mass
activity
of
the
working
class,
the
practical
movement
of
the
proletariat.
Otherwise
there
was
every
danger
of
social
democracy
turning
into
a
sect,
divorced
from
the
practical
activity
of
the
working
class.
Lenin
wrote,
“It
is
important
that
at
the
very
outset
social-democratic
should
strike
the
right
note,
in
regard
to
trade
unions,
and
at
once
create
a
tradition
of
social-democratic
participation,
of
social
democratic
leadership.”
Arm
the
rising
trade
unions
with
a
correct
Marxist
consciousness
through
the
party
of
the
working
class-this
is
what
Lenin
advocated.
In
What
Is
To
Be
Done,
Lenin
directed
his
fire
against
the
economists
and
worshipers
of
spontaneity
who
glorified
the
consciousness
arising
out
of
the
trade
union
struggle
and
saw
no
role
for
the
Party
to
enhance,
enrich
and
revolution
it.
In
effect
it
was
the
same
old
song
of
imprisoning
the
trade
union
movement
within
its
narrow,
circle,
virtually
depoliticalising
it.
Lenin
did
not
belittle
the
daily
struggles
waged
by
the
trade
unions.
Quoting
Engels
on
the
basic
forms
of
struggle,
economic,
political
and
theoretical,
Lenin
considered
the
economic
struggle
as
an
integral
part
of
the
revolutionary
struggle
of
the
proletariat.
“In
the
initial
stage
the
economic
struggle
the
struggle
for
immediate
and
direct
improvement
of
conditions,
is
alone
capable
of
rousing
the
most
backward
strata
of
the
exploited
masses,
gives
them
a
real
education
and
transforms
them-during
a
revolutionary
period-into
an
army
of
political
fighters
within
the
space
of
a
few
months.”
But
at
the
same
time
pointed
out
that
the
consciousness
generated
through
these
spontaneous
struggles,
trade
union
struggles,
could
not
go
beyond
trade
union
consciousness
to
challenge
wage-slavery
itself,
unless
it
is
enriched
and
trained
by
the
Party
on
the
basis
of
Marxism.
The
bourgeoisie
and
its
state
are
not
frightened
by
the
narrow
craft
and
unionism
of
the
workers’
movement.
“The
spontaneous
working
class
movement
is
trade
unionism…
and
trade
unionism
means
the
ideological
enslavement
of
the
workers
by
the
bourgeoisie.”
(What
Is
To
Be
done)
Lenin
had
to
fight
against
new
deviations-completely
fusing
the
party
and
the
trade
unions,
forgetting
the
mass
character
of
the
trade
unions
and
the
level
of
consciousness
of
its
members.
This
was
another
form
of
denigrating
the
role
of
mass
organisations
and
converting
them
into
narrow
appendages
of
the
party.
Party
And
Trade
Unions
The
new
problem
of
establishing
a
correct
relationship
between
the
party
and
the
mass
organisations
was
succinctly
explained
by
Lenin
in
accordance
with
the
teachings
of
Marx
and
Engels.
It
is
no
accident
that
reformists
and
revisionists
have
rejected
this
revolutionary
teaching.
At
the
Second
Congress
of
the
Communist
International,
Lenin
prescribed
the
method
of
communist
work
in
mass
organisations.
It
must
be
done
at
the
grass-roots
level.
It
must
reflect
the
experience
of
the
masses,
which
should
be
conveyed
to
the
party.
It
must
educate
the
masses
by
means
of
agitation
and
Marxist
propaganda.
These
calls,
which
are
to
be
in
close
touch
with
one
another
and
with
the
Party
center,
should,
by
pooling
their
experience
carrying
on
work
of
agitation,
propaganda
and
organisation,
adapting
themselves
to
absolutely
every
sphere
of
public
life
and
to
every
variety
and
category
of
toiling
masses
systematically
educate
themselves,
the
Party,
the
class
and
the
masses
by
means
of
such
diversified
work.”
Like
Marx,
Lenin
fought
the
attempt
at
formation
of
a
sect.
Certain
German
communists
using
high-sounding
phraseology
wanted
to
run
away
from
the
task
of
working
in
mass
trade
union
organisations
in
Europe
and
start
their
own
pure
communist
organisation.
In
effect
this
would
have
led
to
isolating
the
communists
from
the
practical
activity
of
the
class
carried
through
the
mass
trade
union
and
would
have
made
communism
itself
a
sect.
“This
ridiculous
‘theory’
that
communists
should
not
work
in
reactionary
trade
unions
reveals
with
utmost
clarity
the
frivolous
attitude
of
the
‘left’-communists
towards
the
question
of
influencing
the
masses.”
The
question
here
was
of
working
in
trade
unions
led
by
reformists
no
doubt,
but
which
had
huge
mass
sanctions
behind
them,
and
which
for
years
were
the
only
organisations
known
to
the
workers.
These
communists
wanted
to
form
separate
unions
on
the
basis
of
recognition
of
the
Soviet
system
and
dictatorship
of
the
proletariat.
Lenin
described
the
proposal
as
childish.
He
said
in
the
Soviet
Union,
after
the
revolution,
they
would
not
lay
down
such
conditions
for
membership.
“The
task
devolving
on
the
communists
is
to
convince
the
backward
elements,
to
work
among
them
and
not
to
fence
themselves
off
from
them
with
artificial
and
childishly
left
slogans.”
Lenin
taught
that
socialist
consciousness,
the
consciousness
to
achieve
revolution
cannot
come
directly
out
of
trade
union
experience.
The
party
as
the
highest
form
of
class
organisation
has
to
create
it
uniting
the
experiences
of
the
class,
and
carrying
on
the
work
of
agitation,
propaganda
and
theoretical
education
on
the
class.
Lenin
continued
the
work
of
spreading
the
ideas
of
proletarian
internationalism-
the
great
banner
unfurled
by
Marx
and
Engels.
His
relentless
fight
against
the
opportunism
of
the
Second
International
and
foundation
of
the
Third
(Communist)
International
were
part
of
the
fight
he
waged
on
behalf
of
internationalism.
Unity
Of
The
Class
The
struggle
for
a
correct
attitude
to
the
trade
unions
was
a
part
of
the
struggle
to
bring
about
the
political
unity
of
the
working
class
under
the
guidance
and
the
leadership
of
the
party.
That
is
why
the
struggle
for
trade
union
unity
assumed
great
importance
in
the
world
of
all
communist
parties.
The
scientific
outlook
developed
by
Marx
and
Engels
was
not
accepted
by
all
sections
of
the
trade
unions
movement.
In
fact,
after
the
death
of
Marx
the
major
part
of
the
trade
union
movement
in
Europe
took
a
reformist
turn
and
confined
itself
to
work
within
the
framework
of
the
capitalist
system.
Lenin,
as
has
been
pointed
our
earlier,
waged
a
continuous
struggle
against
this
domination
of
reformism
in
the
European
trade
union
movement.
The
struggle
to
bring
about
trade
union
unity
on
the
basis
of
the
revolutionary
outlook
demanded
criticism
and
fight
against
the
established
leadership,
its
practices
and
ideaology.
The
communists
have
the
task
of
bring
one
with
masses
in
their
daily
struggle
and
in
the
course
of
it,
make
an
endeavor
to
release
the
workers
form
reformist
illusion
win
them
over
to
a
revolutionary
outlook.
The
struggle
for
the
masses
and
mass
organisation,
and
their
unity
took
various
forms.
Work
in
mass
trade
unions
led
by
the
reformists,
united
fronts
and
united
actions
and
the
formation
of
separate
mass
organisations-all
have
played
a
role
in
building
trade
union
unity
when
they
reflected
the
appropriate
form
of
cooperation
and
unity
aimed
at
struggle
among
workers.
During
Lenin’s
lifetime
a
separate
organisation-the
Red
International
of
Trade
Unions-was
formed.
The
first
International
Congress
of
Revolutionary
Trade
Unions
was
held
in
Moscow
in
July
1921.
This
was
a
period
in
which
differentiation
in
the
labour
movement
was
continuing
and
sharp
ideological
struggle
was
necessary
against
those
who
were
pulling
them
back
and
it
was
necessary
to
supply
a
focal
point
to
the
workers
who
were
shedding
reformist
illusions.
But
soon
the
situation
changed.
The
partial
stabilisation
of
capitalism
gave
a
further
lease
to
the
reformist
leadership.
The
leaders
continued
to
maintain
their
hold
over
trade
unions.
With
the
rise
of
fascism
the
tactics
and
forms
for
trade
union
unity,
for
winning
over
the
majority
of
the
working
class
changed.
Now
it
was
a
question
of
common
resistance
to
fascism.
Trade
union
unity
was
to
be
achieved
for
organising
anti-fascist
resistance.
The
Seventh
Congress
of
the
Communist
International
took
quick
steps
to
forge
trade
union
unity
to
meet
the
changed
situation.
On
the
basis
of
experience
of
the
communist
parties
in
a
number
of
countries
in
the
struggle
for
trade
union
unity
the
Seventh
Congress
laid
down
proper
and
minimum
conditions
for
such
unity.
Unity
could
be
achieved
if
the
minimum
conditions
necessary
for
organising
anti-fascist
resistance
were
accepted
by
the
reformists.
The
International
put
forward
only
two
conditions,
vis,
conduct
of
close
struggle
and
observance
of
trade
union
democracy.
In
the
bargain
the
communist
parties
agreed
to
accept
the
slogan
of
trade
union
independence
from
political
parties.
This
by
mo
means
meant
that
the
communists
now
turned
into
supporters
of
trade
union
neutrality
and
class
struggle.
The
communists
stood,
as
before
for
the
most
active
class
position
of
the
trade
union
and
against
any
dependence
whatsoever
on
the
bourgeoisie,
but
they
recognised
the
organisational
independence
of
the
united
trade
unions.
“We
are
even
prepared,”
said
Dimitrov,
“to
forgo
the
certain
of
communist
groups
in
the
trade
unions
if
that
is
necessary
in
the
interest
of
trade
unions
unity;
we
are
prepared
to
come
to
an
agreement
about
the
independence
of
the
united
trade
unions
from
all
political
parties.
But
we
are
decidedly
opposed
to
any
dependence
of
the
unions
on
the
bourgeoisie,
and
do
not
give
up
our
basic
point
of
view
that
it
is
impossible
to
adopt
a
neutral
position
in
regard
to
the
class
struggle
between
the
proletariat
and
the
bourgeoisie.”
(Outline
History
of
the
Communist
International,
Institute
of
Marxism-Leninism,
CPSU).
This
certainly
was
not
the
abandonment
of
the
role
of
the
Party
but
its
masterly
applied
to
fulfill
it
in
the
given
condition,
which
required
the
concentration
of
all
working
class
forces
against
fascism.
The
communists
did
not
give
up
their
faith
in
the
party.
They
only
assured
the
mass
of
workers
under
reformist
influence
that
policies
would
be
decided
democratically
and
not
imposed.
Following
this,
the
Red
Trade
Union
International
was
dissolved
in
1937.
The
Soviet
trade
union
organisations
raised
the
question
of
their
affiliation
to
the
reformist
Amsterdam
International
of
trade
unions
laying
down
only
one
condition,
vis,
the
International
was
to
conduct
a
consistent
fight
against
fascism
and
war.
An
agreement
was
reached,
but
it
never
came
into
force,
because
it
was
torpedoed
by
the
reformist
leaders
at
the
Amsterdam
Internation.
It
will
be
seen
that
the
struggle
for
unity
takes
diverse
forms
but
it
always
has
one
aim-to
intensify
class
struggle,
the
revolutionary
struggle
that
is
urgently
necessary
to
move
forward
towards
the
ultimate
aim.
It
is
not
an
aimless
search
for
numbers,
but
a
search
for
class
unity,
for
struggle.
Hence
minimum
conditions
are
always
necessary.
Immediately
after
the
victory
in
the
anti-fascist
war,
the
Soviet
trade
unions
took
the
initiative
to
unite
the
trade
unions
of
the
world
in
a
common
organisation-the
World
Federation
of
Trade
Unions.
It
had
initial
success.
But
soon
organisations
like
the
British
TUC
and
others
separated
themselves
to
pursue
their
old
policies.
Nevertheless,
the
WFTU
today
continues
its
efforts
to
unite
the
trade
union
on
the
question
of
opposition
to
nuclear
war
and
preservations
of
world
peace
and
its
efforts
are
attracting
millions
from
trade
unions
under
the
influence
of
the
reformists.
Movement
In
India
The
trade
union
movement
in
our
country
also
had
to
go
through
several
that
the
movement
elsewhere
had
experienced.
Its
beginning
was
the
spontaneous
action
of
workers
in
defence
of
their
demands.
In
the
words
of
Karl
Marx,
this
was
yet
an
incoherent
Mass
unaware
of
the
necessity
of
a
permanent
organisation.
In
India,
besides,
under
the
British
colonial
rule
both
industry
and
the
working
class
were
developing
very
slowly
and
the
workers
were
a
small
force
surrounded
by
an
ocean
of
peasants.
Their
link
with
the
peasantry
remained
and
continued,
and
in
the
earlier
years
they
considered
themselves
more
as
peasants
than
workers
and
thought
of
factory
employment
only
as
an
aid
to
their
main
occupation,
agriculture.
Under
the
colonial
rule
there
were
no
rights
for
the
workers,
no
right
of
association,
no
right
of
trade
union
bargaining.
The
Trade
Union
Act
was
passed
only
in
1920,
that
is
three
years
after
the
Russian
Revolution.
In
these
circumstances
it
was
not
surprising
that
trade
union
consciousness
grew
slowly
and
it
tool
years
before
the
need
for
a
permanent
organisation
was
felt
and
met.
But
this
urge
for
organisation
was
repeatedly
repressed
and
crushed
by
the
British
rulers.
The
unheard
to
repression
against
striking
workers
under
the
British
was
aimed
at
defeating
all
organisational
efforts
and
confidence
in
organisation.
This
was
accompanied
by
open
victimisation
of
trade
union
leaders
and
activists
and
denial
of
jobs
to
them.
The
workers
of
an
enslaved
country
had
very
little
chance
to
organise
big
unions
and
pit
them
against
the
state
directed
repression
and
employers’
victimisation
drive.
In
the
earlier
years
the
combination
could
take
the
form
of
joint
strike
actions
and
nothing
else.
The
lack
of
right
reduced
unions
and
combination
to
fight
only
for
wages
to
determine
which
to
standards
were
laid
down.
But
out
of
this
chaos
the
necessity
for
permanent
organisations
began
to
assert
itself
and
they
began
to
be
formed
by
the
second
decade
of
the
century
all
over
the
country.
Here,
again,
there
were
hardly
any
rights,
and
the
only
right
left
to
them
to
express
their
unity
was
strike.
The
government
began
to
describe
such
unions
derisively,
many
of
which
were
led
by
communists,
as
only
being
strike
committees.
Anti
Imperialist
Actions
It
was
inevitable
that
these
trade
union
struggles
should
confine
themselves
to
immediate
economic
demands,
mainly
of
wages.
That
was
the
consciousness
of
the
participants,
workers
who
wee
just
laying
the
basis
of
a
common
organisation.
But
anti-imperialist
politics
would
from
time
to
time
break
asunder
the
barricade
of
economic
demands
and
make
the
workers
use
their
strike
weapon
to
protest
against
imperialist
repression.
The
workers
were
being
drawn
into
the
national
protest
against
British
tyranny.
This
happened
in
1908
when
Lokmanya
Tilak
was
sentenced
to
six
years’
imprisonment.
The
workers
went
on
a
one-day
strike
for
every
year
of
the
sentence.
They
clashed
with
the
police
and
the
British
army.
Several
were
killed.
Their
resistance
galvanised
the
entire
city
of
Bombay
and
drew
into
action
small
businessmen
and
the
middle
classes.
This
was
the
first
time
that
the
working
class
used
the
powerful
weapon
strike
in
all
industries
for
a
political
purpose
and
revealed
its
efficacy
as
the
general
mobiliser
of
the
people.
A
decade
later,
the
workers
of
Ahmedabad,
on
hearing
the
news
of
Mahatma
Gandhi’s
went
on
strike
that
ended
in
classes
with
the
police,
so
that
the
British
Government
placed
the
city
under
martial
law.
After
another
decade,
in
1930,
the
Sholapur
textile
workers
went
on
a
complete
strike
in
protest
against
the
arrest
of
Mahatma
Gandhi,
drawing
the
entire
town
into
the
protest.
The
administration
was
chased
out
of
the
city,
the
government
declared
martial
law
and
later
on
hanged
4
patriots
one
of
whom
was
the
secretary
of
the
textile
workers’
union.
On
October,
2,1939,90000
Bombay
workers
carried
out
a
one-day
political
strike
against
the
war
and
the
repressive
measures
of
imperialism.
The
call
for
all
these
actions
was
not
given
by
the
Congress
leaders
who
led
the
national
movement.
It
was
the
spontaneous
action
of
the
working
class
under
their
own
initiative.
The
national
appeal
was
breaking
through
the
economism
of
the
trade
union
struggle
but
such
outbursts
of
proletarian
protests
were
and
exceptional.
The
last
independent
action
of
the
working
class
over
the
head
of
the
national
leadership
was
the
general
strike
of
Bombay
workers
in
1946
in
support
of
the
revolt
of
the
RIN
cadets.
The
call
for
strike
was
given
by
the
Communist
Party.
A
number
of
top
national
leaders
like
Tilka,
Lajpat
Rai
and
others
played
a
part
in
laying
the
foundation
of
the
AITUC.
Lajpat
Rai
presided
over
the
first
session
and
C
r
Das
over
the
second
session.
After
the
1930
movement
and
the
increasing
number
of
strike
and
especially
the
rise
of
the
communist
leadership,
the
line
was
to
run
down
strikes,
fight
the
communist
influence,
that
is,
all
independent
trade
union
activities
creating
socialist
consciousness,
and
appeal
to
the
working
class
on
the
basis
of
nationalism
to
confine
it
to
such
anti-imperialist
action
as
suited
the
Congress
leaders.
In
effect
it
meant
that
the
trade
unions
should
confine
themselves
to
economic
demands,
settle
them
round
the
table,
abjure
all
revolutionary
politics
and
go
in
for
political
action
only
when
called
for
by
the
bourgeois
leadership.
The
emergence
of
bourgeois
leaders
and
their
effort
to
tie
down
the
trade
union
to
their
politics
was
bound
to
lead
to
a
struggle
inside
the
trade
union
movement
when
the
communists
took
to
trade
union
work
seriously.
This
happened
some
time
after
the
foundation
of
the
AITUC
Communist
groups
were
rising
in
different
parts
of
the
country
under
the
inspiration
of
the
Great
October
Revolution.
But
as
yet
they
were
individuals
and
groups
totally
unconnected
with
the
practical
movement
of
the
working
class.
There
was
every
chance
of
some
of
them
turning
into
a
special
sect
divorced
from
the
actual
movement
of
the
working
class.
The
common
feature
of
earlier
communist
conspiracy
cases,
including
the
Kanpur
conspiracy
case,
was
that
the
young
communists
had
not
yet
succeeded
in
approaching
the
working
class
with
the
new
ideology.
Between
Kanpur
(1924)
and
the
Meerut
(1929)
trials
the
situation
had
changed.
Now
the
communists
were
carrying
the
ideology
of
the
working
class
to
the
working
class;
Marxism
was
being
united
with
the
practical
working
class
movement.
The
communists
succeeded
in
forming
big
mass
unions
preached
complete
independence
and
agrarian
revolution,
organised
huge
anti-imperialist
protest
and
strike
to
strengthen
the
anti-imperialist
struggle
of
the
people.
The
complete
strike
of
the
workers
of
Bombay
when
the
imperialist
Simon
Commission
landed
in
the
city
in
1927
became
part
of
the
gigantic
national
movement
for
boycotting
the
commission.
Calcutta
and
other
industrial
centers
saw
similar
protests.
This
was
possible
because
the
communists
by
hard
work
in
fighting
for
the
immediate
demands
of
the
industrial
workers
had
build
powerful
mass
organisations
in
which
the
masses
had
full
confidence
and
which
had
already
raised
their
consciousness
to
higher
level.
In
the
Meerut
trial
the
composition
of
the
accused
reflected
the
change-Marxism
going
to
the
working
class.
Along
with
communist
from
the
lower
middle
classes
now
stood
in
the
dock
two
textile
workers
of
Bombay
who
were
the
leaders
of
the
mass
Girni
Kamgar
union
(membership
80,000)
and
who
till
a
few
months
before
the
trial
were
working
in
the
mills.
And
along
with
them
stood
three
British
symbolising
the
unity
of
the
workers
in
oppressed
and
oppressor
countries.
Struggle
Inside
The
Movement
Ass
has
been
pointed
out
earlier
a
struggle
inside
the
trade
union
movement
was
now
inevitable
as
in
other
countries.
The
non
working
class
non-Marxist
views
were
bound
to
clash
with
the
proletarian
ideology
and
the
task
of
keeping
the
trade
unions
united
was
to
be
carried
on
despite
the
clash
and
conflict
and
without
surrender
outlook.
Conflicts
spilt
united
front
unity
again
spilt
and
united
front
these
were
bound
to
occur.
But
the
communists
never
left
their
search
for
unity
in
the
trade
union
movement
fully
understanding
Marxian
teachings.
The
note
of
the
CPI(M)
on
splits
on
the
AITUC
published
in
People’s
Democracy
(August
9,
1970)
gave
an
objective
account
of
the
various
splits
and
the
political
struggle
behind
it.
After
the
first
two
splits
the
AITUC
was
reunited
and
made
progress.
The
third
split
took
place
in
1947
and
subsequently.
It
once
more
shows
how
the
bourgeoisie
and
their
agents
feel
the
necessity
of
a
split
when
the
Communists
gain
influence
over
the
working
class.
Congress-Engineered
split
In
1947,
the
Congress
wing
in
the
AITUC
split
away
at
the
behest
of
the
leadership
of
the
National
Congress
to
found
a
new
trade
union
organisation,
the
INTUC.
Sardar
Patel
organised
the
split
asking
the
Congress
unions
outside
the
AITUC
and
inside
AITUC
to
come
together
and
form
a
new
organisation.
The
bourgeois
leaders
of
the
Congress
required
a
separate
organisation
to
extend
their
influence
over
the
working
class
and
fight
the
communists
as
the
main
enemy.
It
was
political
necessity
for
the
bourgeoisie
to
split
away
and
they
did
so.
This
was
made
plain
in
the
speeches
delivered
at
the
foundation
session
of
the
INTUC,
which
made
it
clear
that
the
seceders
wanted
a
policy
of
class-collaboration,
and
strike
at
the
influence
of
the
communists.
In
his
inaugural
address,
Kripalani
made
clear
the
difference:
“In
fact
there
is
an
unbridgeable
gulf
between
the
sponsors
of
the
new
trade
union
and
the
AITUC.
The
new
organisation
will
not
hesitate
to
employ
the
weapon
of
strike,
if
it
were
essential
to
promote
the
true
interests
of
labour.
But
that
weapon
is
to
be
employed
after
due
consideration
and
with
the
utmost
causion.
But
it
would
however
not
only
be
a
misuse
of
this
weapon
if
it
were
to
be
employed
for
the
attainment
of
sectional
political
ends.”
Familiar
language
both
against
strikes
and
the
revolutionary
working
class
movement.
Class
interests
of
the
bourgeoisie
demand
that
both
should
be
rejected
by
the
working
class.
Gulsari
Lal
Nanda
put
the
matter
more
clearly:
“The
policies
pursued
by
the
AITUC
leadership
under
the
communist
leadership
which
functions
in
its
name
stand
in
sharp
and
total
conflict
with
our
aims.
Their
ways
threaten
the
welfare
and
security
of
the
community
and
are
inimical
to
the
best
interests
of
the
workers
themselves.
The
urgent
need
of
the
movement
is,
therefore,
to
provide
machinery
for
coordinating
the
scattered
forces
of
those
who
are
in
fundamental
opposition
to
the
communists
in
their
approach
to
labour
matters.”
(G
Ramanujam,
Story
of
Indian
Labour,
p.
56)
And
in
his
presidential
address,
Sardar
Patel
said,
“In
their
blind
position
to
the
Government,
the
communist
leaders
have
thrown
all
regard
for
the
national
welfare
to
the
winds.
The
irresponsibility
and
recklessness
of
these
people
pass
all
understanding.
Strikes
are
launched
on
all
conceivable
pretexts
in
utter
disregard
of
the
workers’
own
interests
and
well
bring.
Nothing
is
achieved
through
these
strikes
except
chaos
and
misery
all
round.”
The
class
fear
was
quite
consciously
stated
in
the
main
resolution,
which
said,
“Whereas
the
course
which
the
labour
movement
in
the
country
is
taking
under
the
leadership
of
those
who
are
opposed
to
peaceful
change
and
democratic
methods
has
proved
trade
unionism,
etc.”
Peaceful
change,
democratic
methods,
is
not
this
also
the
refrain
of
the
present
day
reformists.
The
main
point
is
that
the
Congress
split
the
AITUC
to
fight
the
communists
and
revolutionary
movement
and
take
the
trade
unions
to
bourgeois
politics-economic
struggle
without
strikes
and
constitutional
politics.
The
socialists
and
some
other
groups
also
later
on
split
away
from
the
organisation.
Sectarian
mistakes
in
the
Party’s
political
line
also
facilitated
and
contributed
to
the
splitting
away
of
some
other
groups.
In
the
earlier
years
also
sectarian
mistakes
in
the
trade
front
sometimes
the
task
of
the
disruptors.
The
AITUC
now
mostly
under
the
leadership
of
the
Communist
Party
continued
to
grow.
It
received
a
set
back
after
the
sectarian
mistakes
following
the
Second
Congress
of
the
Party.
But
it
again
gathered
strength.
But
soon
the
bug
of
class
collaboration
began
to
bit
a
section
of
the
Party
leadership.
Supported
by
revisionist
tendencies
abroad,
this
section
rapidly
traveled
down
the
inclined
plane
of
opportunism.
It
led
to
the
split
in
the
Party
and
the
formation
of
the
CPI(M)
in
1964.
The
CPI(M)
while
opposing
the
revisionism
of
the
CPI
leadership
decided
to
work
in
the
AITUC
and
fight
for
a
correct
policy
inside
based
on
the
teaching
of
Marx.
That
leadership
was
moving
more
and
more
away
from
the
CPI(M)
and
non
communist
left
towards
the
National
Congress
and
Indira
Gandhi.
This
period
saw
the
break-up
of
the
United
Front
ministries
in
West
Bengal
and
Kerala,
the
CPI
leaders
playing
notable
role
in
this
disruption.
It
also
saw
the
displacement
of
the
coalition
ministry
of
the
CPI(M)
and
CPI
and
others
by
a
coalition
ministry
in
Kerala
of
the
Congress
(I)
and
the
CPI.
The
fight
against
the
CPI(M)-Communists-now
replaced
the
fight
against
the
bourgeois
leaders,
the
Government
and
the
ruling
party.
This
naturally
led
to
similar
tactics
in
the
AITUC
with
the
inevitable
result
of
a
split.
The
1970
Split
Having
failed
in
their
unity
efforts
the
CPI(M)
and
some
other
members
of
the
General
Council
of
the
AITUC
held
a
special
convention
in
Goa
on
April
9
and
10,
1970,
and
called
for
a
special
conference
of
those
who
were
opposed
to
the
class-collaborationist
policies
of
the
AITUC
leadership.
This
led
to
the
foundation
of
the
CITU.
In
calling
for
separate
conference
the
Goa
Convention
made
the
following
observations
in
its
resolution.
A
grave
situation
faces
the
militant
trade
union
movement
and
all
class-conscious
workers
in
the
country.
The
AITUC,
which
over
long
years
had
grown
as
the
rallying
center
for
all
militant
trade
unions
in
the
country
for
carrying
forward
the
united
struggle
of
the
working
class,
has
ceased
to
be
so
due
to
the
class-collaborationist
policies
of
the
Dangeites.
The
working
class
was
thus
sought
to
be
disarmed
and
prevented
from
playing
its
role
of
rallying
the
democratic
forces
against
the
danger
of
penetration
of
American
imperialism
into
our
economic,
political,
social
and
cultural
life,
and
in
the
struggle
against
the
Government’s
Plans
and
policies
in
the
interest
of
monopolists
and
big
landlords.
As
a
natural
corollary
to
this
line,
the
dominant
leadership
of
the
AITUC
praised
to
the
skies
the
tripartite
conference
and
committees,
the
wage
boards
and
such
other
machinery
set
up
by
the
Government
to
sow
illusion
in
the
working
class
and
paraded
them
as
big
victories
of
the
working
class.
Rationalisation
‘without
tears’
was
accepted
in
‘national
interest’.
The
leadership
gave
its
full
cooperation
to
the
Government’s
scheme
of
‘productivity’
and
so-called
‘workers’
education’,
the
so-called
‘code
of
discipline’,
weighted
against
the
working
class,
and
which
was
used
by
the
employers
as
an
instrument
to
malign
the
militant
working
class
struggles,
was
agreed
to.
And
finally
in
1962,
industrial
truce
was
accepted.
It
was
no
surprise
therefore
that
after
the
spilt
the
AITUC
leaders
rushed
headlong
along
the
path
of
class
collaboration
and
lent
their
support
to
the
emergency
rule.
CPI(M)’s
Struggle
For
Trade
Union
Unity
As
in
other
capitalist
countries,
in
India
also
the
Marxist
trade
union
line
had
to
contend
at
each
stage
for
its
existence,
its
acceptance
and
recognition
as
a
powerful
influence
in
the
common
movement.
But
the
CPI(M)
was
certainly
not
happy
with
the
split.
The
Party
realised
that
this
was
a
blow
to
trade
union
unity
and
hampered
the
work
of
creating
class-consciousness
among
the
workers.
Quick
steps
must
be
taken
to
heal
the
breach.
If
of
cooperation
and
common
action
should
be
devised.
The
CITU
at
its
foundation
conference
asked
its
unions
to
observe
a
trade
union
unity
week
and
create
the
urge
among
the
workers
for
common
action.
The
CITU
worked
for
united
front
and
united
action.
A
united
front
organisation
consisting
of
the
CITU,
HMP,
P
&
t
Federation,
AIEA
was
formed
in
1973.
The
AITUC
in
consonance
with
its
policy
of
preferring
the
congress
to
the
CPI(M)
and
Left
joined
hands
with
the
INTUC
to
form
another
combination.
The
UCTU
front
resulted
in
the
organisation
of
the
1973
all-India
railway
strike-a
remarkable
achievement.
The
emergency
disrupted
the
movement
but
at
the
end
of
the
emergency
the
CITU
and
others
picked
up
the
thread
and
set
themselves
a
task
of
wider
unity.
The
change
in
the
political
line
of
the
CPI,
their
moving
away
from
the
Indira
Congress
and
willingness
to
join
the
left
opposition
forces
made
it
possible
to
widen
the
scope
of
trade
union
unity.
The
CITU
ever
eager
to
forge
such
unity
took
the
initiative
in
brining
it
about
and
with
the
cooperation
of
others
succeeded
in
forming
the
National
Campaign
Committee
in
1981.
The
National
Campaign
Committee,
which
is
based
on
central
trade
unions
and
supported
by
several
trade
union
federations
with
huge
followings
is
today
an
authoritative
voice
of
workers’
and
employees’
organisations
in
India.
Almost
all-important
organisations
of
these
two
sections
are
included
under
it
except
the
INTUC,
which
toes
the
line
of
the
ruling
party.
The
isolation
of
the
ruling
party
from
the
trade
union
movement
is
seen
here.
It
may
be
mentioned
that
on
certain
occasions
like
negotiations
the
cooperation
between
those
who
are
in
the
National
Campaign
Committee
and
the
INTUC
unions
is
also
developing.
The
November
demonstration
of
the
working
class
in
the
capital,
the
all-India
strike
of
January
1982,
the
three-day
coal
strike
are
some
of
the
achievement
of
the
NCC
which
has
strengthened
the
sense
of
all-India
and
class
unity.
The
initiative
and
work
for
the
formation
of
the
National
Campaign
committee
the
importance
attached
to
it
by
us
to
its
activities,
the
struggle
to
maintain
its
cohesion
and
unity
are
expression
of
our
Party’s
line
for
trade
union
unity,
for
unification
of
the
class
in
its
economic
battles.
The
struggle
for
economic
unity
is
an
integral
party
for
the
political
unity
of
the
working
class
to
enable
it
to
discharge
its
role
as
the
hegemon
of
the
People’s
Democratic
Revolution.
To
consolidate
the
unity
already
achieved
the
CITU
proposes
a
confederation
of
all
trade
unions,
central
organisations
and
federation
foe
exchange
of
opinion
and
discussion
on
common
problems.
The
task
on
the
Trade
Union
Front
document
of
the
Party
(1983)
notes
the
limitations
of
the
unity
achieved.
“Notwithstanding
the
advance
of
trade
union
unity,
it
has
to
be
remembered
that
it
is
secured
at
a
low
level
of
consciousness
on
the
basis
of
certain
preliminary
demands.
The
consciousness
reflected
here
does
not
show
much
advance
bryond
economic
demands.”
The
party
knows
that
with
this
level
of
consciousness
the
working
class
will
not
be
able
to
discharge
its
role.
It
is
therefore
set
to
struggle
against
economism,
which
is
a
dominant
trend
in
the
Indian
trade
union
movement.
It
therefore
demands
a
correct
relationship
between
the
Party
and
the
trade
unions,
never
forgetting
the
mass
character
of
the
trade
union,
nor
the
guiding
role
of
the
Party.
It
criticises
bureaucratic
and
undemocratic
functioning
of
the
trade
unions
and
warns
its
members
against
this
type
of
deviations.
At
its
Plenum
it
criticised
those
who
considered
the
mass
organisations
as
pocket
boroughs
of
the
Party
and
those
who
functioned
them
independently
of
the
Party.
The
party
also
notes
its
responsibility
to
raise
the
working
class
consciousness
to
a
higher
level-the
level
of
socialist
consciousness.
In
its
latest
document
it
stresses
this
task
and
calls
for
more
propaganda
work
among
the
worker,
and
not
to
be
satisfied
with
more
agitation.
It
notes
that
a
lot
of
improvement
has
taken
place
in
our
work
in
the
trade
union
front.
Along
with
economic
issues
political,
international
issues
are
being
discussed
in
union
gatherings.
Yet
much
remains
to
be
done.
What
is
being
done
is
just
the
beginning.
While
not
overstepping
the
existing
consciousness
of
the
mass
of
workers
and
other
organisations,
the
unions
under
the
guidance
of
the
party
work
in
the
direction
of
raising
the
consciousness.
In
particular
they
work
for
the
growing
intervention
and
participation
in
movement
on
democratic
issues
and
struggles,
for
defence
of
the
interests
of
the
peasantry
and
the
pople.
The
party
notes
the
fatal
weakness
of
the
movement
in
its
lack
of
international
outlook,
its
indifference
to
the
vital
question
of
nuclear
war
and
defence
of
peace.
Unions
led
by
Party
members
have
better
consciousness
in
this
regard
but
even
this
has
improved.
Looking
to
the
trade
union
movement
as
a
whole
the
gap
in
international
consciousness
is
alarming.
To overcome this Party stresses that the independent activities of the unions under its guidance must be continuously organised. They must set a model of action and consciousness inspiring and educating others.