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p World War II brought about many changes in the international labor movement. Rapidly expanding war production affected the structure of the working class in the capitalist countries involved in the war. Also, the scope of industry grew, accelerating the formation of a working class in colonial and dependent countries.

p In most European and Asian countries the working class lost what it had gained in the prewar decades. Communist and Workers’ parties were outlawed and forced underground, and most trade unions were banned. The new fascist order put workers in the position of slaves bereft of rights to defend their vital interests. The workday was virtually unlimited, and labor was further intensified. Workers were deprived of their right to organize and strike. Fascism stripped them of their political rights and brought them great economic distress. But even in these circumstances the working class became the leading force in the Resistance movement in occupied countries.

p In the course of the struggle, the workers resorted to mass strikes. In France, the German administration felt the impact of worker discontent as early as the spring of 1941, when 120,000 miners in the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais went out on strike in May and June. In 1943, there were strikes by steelworkers, metal workers, builders, textile workers and in other industries. The reactivated General Confederation of Labor soon headed the struggle, distributing thousands of leaflets and underground newspapers calling for strike actions and street demonstrations. Railroad workers of the Paris 115 region and municipal employees staged strikes in 1944. Subsequently, separate strike actions developed into general strikes and ultimately grew into an armed uprising. In Czechoslovakia, notwithstanding a law banning strikes, 25 strikes were registered as early as 1939. In 1941, they occurred more frequently and became markedly political in character.

p French, Czechoslovak, Polish, Norwegian and Belgian workers engaged extensively in war plant and railroad sabotage. In addition to such acts as disabling machinery, the anti-fascists used the slow-down as a common form pf sabotage. “Work without haste" was the motto of the Czechoslovak and Belgian workers. In March and April 1945, sabotage in occupied Norway grew to such an extent that transportation and war production were brought to a near standstill.

p The European workers’ struggle against fascism soon evolved into armed resistance. Guerrilla detachments began to operate successfully in the occupied countries and were of great help to the Allied forces.

p The workers would not reconcile themselves to the destruction of their trade unions. In 1940, French workers started to form the first clandestine people’s and unemployed committees to take the place of the dissolved unions. By September 1940, there were more than 110 such committees in the Paris region alone.

p In 1941, Norwegian workers also initiated underground organizations, and by October 1942 an underground trade union center, which included representatives of the Communist Party, had been formed. In Belgium, resistance committees were created, through which the workers played a leading role in the liberation movement.

p Important changes took place in the labor movements in the countries aligned against Hitler. The working class and its organizations grew, and the working people became more politically conscious and active. They put their all into their work, fully realizing the need for maximum effort in order to achieve an early victory over fascism. At the same time, they expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the common man had to bear all the hardships of the war while the monopolies continued to rake in fabulous profits.

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p The workers became better organized during the war years. Before the war the world’s trade unions had a total membership of about 40,000,000. By the war’s end it exceeded 70,000,000.

p The most important phenomenon of the war years, however, was the greatly increased influence of the Communist parties. The Communist parties proved their devotion to the national and class interests of the proletariat. As leaders in the anti-fascist struggle they took the worst fascist blows and suffered heavy losses.

p In 1939, the Communist parties in the capitalist countries had a total of 1,750,000 members; by 1946 this figure had grown to 5,000,000.

p The heightened influence of the Communist parties could be seen in the results of parliamentary elections. In Norway, the Communist Party won 11 parliamentary seats in the October 1945 elections. As for the French and Italian Communists, their selfless struggle in the Resistance movement won them widespread renown as true and fearless patriots. As a result, by the end of the war the Communist parties became the largest and most influential parties in both France and Italy, where their representatives were in the governments until 1947.

p During the war the striving for international unity increased among the masses of workers. The struggle against fascism drew workers with different political views and sentiments closer together. At the same time, the heroic struggle of the Soviet people was an inspiration to the workers in the capitalist countries, especially the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. All this helped strengthen ties between the trade unions of Britain, France, the USA and the USSR. The need for labor unity was becoming obvious. The main question now was who would step forward first, who would take the initiative in putting the question of unity into the context of practical action. The initiative was taken by Soviet trade unions and their leading center, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (AUCCTU). In the autumn of 1941, they made a proposal to the British working people, suggesting, in the interest of furthering their common cause, the creation of an Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee.

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p It was not easy for the British trade union leaders to accept this offer of cooperation due to their previous positions. But the war and the sentiments of broad segments of the British public compelled them to do so. In September 1941, the British Trades Union Congress (TUG) met in Edinburgh and adopted a resolution pledging support to Soviet Russia and calling for cooperation with the AUCCTU. The TUC leadership agreed to the creation of an Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee (ASTUC). The Committee began its work in Moscow on October 15, 1941, during the most critical days of the city’s defense. In December of that year, a Soviet delegation went to London for the second session of the ASTUC. There the question arose of bringing into the ASTUC labor representatives from other countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the United States included.

p During the decades preceding the war the Communist Party of the USA had done a great deal in spreading the ideas of socialism and proletarian internationalism in the American labor movement. However, it was small in numbers and could not gain sufficient -influence to win a mass following. The Socialist Party, which had lost its ties with the masses of workers, was even less capable of doing this. The Gompersites in the trade unions, on the other hand, had long been distracting the workers from political issues and foisting upon them the philosophy of “pure” trade unionism. They worked to stifle the spirit of proletarian internationalism, fostering sentiments of separateness and national exclusiveness.

p In contrast to Socialists and trade union conservatives the Communist Party of the USA rendered a great service in combatting this attitude as it fought for working-class cohesion and unity of action. Unremittingly, it called for common efforts on the part of Soviet, American and British trade unions. “American labor,” William Z. Foster wrote, “could lend much greater power to the world war effort of the United Nations if it were linked up closely with the British and Soviet trade unions. Such unity of action among these three labor movements and allies is basically necessary to strengthen the alliance and common fighting action of the United Nations; to increase production on an international scale; and to provide additional guarantees for ensuring friendly collaboration 118 among the United Nations and peoples in the organization of a just and lasting peace in the postwar period.”  [118•1 

p The American Communists felt that international labor unity should become the mainstay of all anti-fascist forces. A month before the United States entered the war, the fourth convention of the CIO called for the establishment of contacts with the free trade union movements of other countries for the purpose of cooperating in the struggle against fascism and to guarantee a just and lasting peace after Hitler’s defeat. This demand was voiced by the industrial unions, which in those years represented the left wing of the American labor movement. After the creation of the Anglo-Soviet Committee, the CIO called upon the AFL and other American trade unions to become affiliated with it.

p The second session of the ASTUC agreed on the need to expand the Committee to include American trade unions. In accordance with a resolution to that effect, Walter M. Citrine, general secretary of the TUC, came to the United States in May 1942 to hold talks with representatives of American labor.

p Increasing numbers of American and British workers supported the idea of labor unity among the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. It would seem, therefore, that Citrine’s mission should have succeeded; however, for a number of reasons, it did not.

p At its second session the ASTUC had discussed the possibility of inviting the AFL, CIO and the Railroad Brotherhoods to affiliate with it. But once in the United States, Citrine negotiated with the AFL only. And this was not accidental, because in the preceding years the AFL and the TUC had established strong ties. In 1937, after a long interval, the AFL had again joined the Amsterdam International. Thus, the AFL and the TUC were members of the same international organization, one to which the CIO had no access.

p Soon after arriving, Citrine held private talks with AFL leaders. Little is known about his position at these meetings. Some researchers say that he tried to obtain the AFL’s consent to include the CIO and Railroad Brotherhoods in the planned Anglo-Soviet-American Trade Union Council. It followed 119 from what TUC leaders said at the time that Citrine had come with instructions to enlist all organized American workers into the Council.

p But how conscientiously Citrine carried out the will of the rank and file is hard to say. What proposals he made and what debates revolved around them during the private talks he had with the AFL leaders remains unknown. “The A. F. of L. Executive Council,” Foster wrote, “met in high secrecy on the matter, arrived at its decision, gave Citrine his answer, and he departed to England, without the great rank and file of the American labor movement being allowed to express its opinion in any way on the questions under discussion, or even to know what was being decided about them.”   [119•1  Only later did it become known that the AFL executive council declined the proposal to affiliate with the Anglo-Soviet Committee.

p There was nothing surprizing about this decision. In making it the AFL leaders were obviously counting on prejudices among American workers and their passiveness with respect to foreign policy issues. But the argument they used to justify their unwillingness to cooperate with Soviet trade unions was that these unions were purportedly not free organizations and did not represent the interests of the Soviet working class.

p Thus Citrine’s mission failed because of the AFL leadership’s stance. It could have succeeded had Citrine addressed himself to all the labor organizations of America, rather than to the AFL alone. But since the AFL considered the CIO an “illegal” organization, the general council of the TUC was reluctant to take such a step lest it annoy the AFL.

p In refusing to cooperate with Soviet trade unions and rejecting the idea of international unity, the AFL leaders were counting on the passiveness of the rank and file. But in fact things were changing. AFL workers had become more active, and their political awareness and interest in foreign policy had grown. The leadership’s decision drew protestations from the membership. Even stronger protests came from the CIO, whose progressive democratic position on many labor issues we have already noted.

p From the very outset the CIO leadership was not a 120 homogeneous group. Alongside the left figures, there were rightists like James Carey, Emil Rieve and others who for the time being were not openly showing their true colors. Not only their past, but also an identity of views aligned some of them with such former “Social-Democrats” from the AFL as Max Zaritsky and David Dubinsky. Both groups were antiCommunist and were united in their animosity toward the Soviet Union. However, the situation in the country at the time, and the balance of forces within the leadership and the CIO as a whole, were not favorable to the rightists. The CIO’s policy on many questions, including international relations, was determined by a left-center coalition, thanks to which, on the whole, the CIO played a positive role in the struggle for the creation of a world trade union federation.

p The CIO sought representation in international affairs on an equal footing with the AFL. It is not surprising that Citrine’s virtual refusal to deal with any organization besides the AFL provoked the displeasure of the CIO and the Railroad Brotherhoods. In August 1942, the leaders of these organizations issued a protest against the actions of Walter Citrine and the AFL executive council. Many workers supported their statement. CIO unions demanded broader cooperation with Soviet trade unions. The National Maritime Union, for example, condemned the AFL’s decision and indicated that it would make its own contacts with the Soviet seamen’s union and with the maritime unions of the United Nations (the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition).  [120•1  A United Automobile Workers convention called upon the CIO to initiate a conference of the trade unions of the United Nations.  [120•2  The eighth and ninth conventions of the United Electrical Workers in 1942 and 1943 urged the CIO executive board to join the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee and to encourage other American unions to follow suit.

p Conventions of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Fur and Leather Workers, Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers, and United Farm Equipment Workers made similar demands. CIO locals also endorsed this course toward cooperation among unions of the three countries. The vast 121 majority of the CIO membership and many members of AFL and independent unions were in favor of joint actions with Soviet trade unions and of convening a world trade union conference.

p The national conventions of the CIO played an important role in the mass movement for joint action with Soviet trade unions. As early as 1941 the fourth convention of the CIO requested the executive board “to take practical steps to make contact with the representatives of the free democratic trade union movements throughout the world so as to insure the closest possible cooperation of organized workers in all countries in the present struggle against Hitlerism and to further insure that once Hitler is defeated organized labor shall be prepared to participate in the formulating of peace that will guarantee political freedom, industrial democracy, economic security and opportunity of lasting peace”.  [121•1 

p In a message of greetings to the fifth national convention of the CIO held in Boston in November 1942, the AUCCTU stressed that united actions by labor organizations were necessary for mobilizing forces and using them to achieve a speedy victory over the enemy, and successfully resolving the problems of postwar world development. On its part, the convention declared that the CIO would “continue to take all necessary steps to establish international labor cooperation with direct participation by the British and Soviet unions, the AFL, the CIO, and Railway Labor, and the unions of the other United Nations, including our Latin American allies".  [121•2 

p The CIO’s stand influenced the sentiments of many members of AFL unions. President Flore of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union declared that “the workers of Russia, the United States and Great Britain and all their allies must stand and fight together".  [121•3  A group of 150 officers of AFL unions in the New York area went even further than merely make declarations. They formed a Committee to Promote Unity of the Trade Union Movements of the United Nations.  [121•4  Hundreds of local AFL unions, more than a dozen 122 State Federations and a number of international unions favored full cooperation by all sections of the American labor movement with the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee and AFL membership in it.  [122•1 

p But even so, these actions were not enough to overcome the conservative position held by most AFL leaders. The progressive forces were unable to alter the course of the labor reactionaries in favor of joint action by US and Soviet trade unions.

p The 62nd AFL convention, after hearing the report of the Committee on International Relations, approved the decisions of the executive council. Many declarations were made about the necessity of mutual understanding and cooperation among the workers of all countries. However, the convention adopted a resolution which in effect rejected the idea of a joint trade union committee of the three countries.  [122•2  Addressing the delegates, a TUC representative, Bryn Roberts, present at the convention, agreed with the idea of creating a separate Anglo-American committee, although he did voice the hope that in the future the American trade union movement would take part in an organization that would include US, British and Soviet representatives.

p One of the important points in the 62nd AFL convention’s resolution on international ties had to do with the Amsterdam International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). This was not accidental. When World War II began, some leaders of the IFTU took refuge in London, where they formed a temporary Emergency International Trade Union Council. Nevertheless, as an organization, the Amsterdam International was inactive during the war. But even during the years of its greatest influence before the war, it had never been a truly worldwide international labor organization.

p The idea of real international trade union unity in the form of a world organization met with stubborn resistance from the reactionary forces in the trade union movement in the Western countries. They feared that in a new organization built on a democratic basis they would be unable to dictate their own 123 policy. At the 1942 AFL convention, the Federation’s top leaders praised the IFTU, citing its “vitality and aggressiveness under trying circumstances".  [123•1  A resolution adopted at that convention spoke of the need for cooperation between the AFL and the IFTU.

p The fate of the IFTU was a subject of no less concern to British trade union figures, for it was they who sponsored its creation and played a leading role in it. But the British understood that they would not be able to revive the International in its previous form. Walter Schevenels, general secretary of the IFTU, also agreed with this. At a session of the Emergency International Trade Union Council held in September 1942, Schevenels, with the backing of the British, raised the question of reorganizing the International.  [123•2  A special committee was set up to study the question. In 1943, the Emergency Council twice returned to this subject. At a session in April a proposal was made to admit Soviet trade unions into the IFTU, and henceforth not to limit membership to one union center per country. However, no decision was reached at that session. Later, the Emergency Council again took up the question of reorganization. The AUCCTU, the CIO and the rank and file of the TUC were calling for the convocation of an international trade union conference for the purpose of setting up a world trade union organization. The reformist union leaders, however, wanted to “keep the movement by and large in line with the long established IFTU traditions and conceptions".  [123•3 

p Evidence that the AFL leaders were thinking in terms of reviving the Amsterdam International along previous lines was their attitude to the CIO and Soviet trade unions. Once it gained the TUC’s consent on the formation of a bilateral Anglo-American Committee instead of an Anglo-SovietAmerican Council, the AFL leadership demanded of the TUC repudiation of any ties with the CIO. This line was endorsed by the AFL 1943 convention.

p In 1943, the AFL leadership continued its campaign against 124 cooperation with the Soviet trade unions. At the 63rd convention in Boston, held in October of that year, it was declared that any such cooperation would be regarded as aiding and abetting communism in the USA.

p While the reformists were discussing reorganization of the Amsterdam International, Soviet trade unions and progressive forces in other countries were working for the convocation of an international trade union conference. At the British 75th Trades Union Congress in Southport in 1943, Soviet representative N.Shvernik once again proposed that the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee be broadened to include trade unions from the United States and other anti-Axis countries. The Soviet delegation spoke in favor of holding a world conference as soon as possible.  [124•1  The delegates supported the proposal. Moreover, the congress adopted a resolution requesting the TUC to prepare and convene the conference in June 1944.

p This decision was in keeping with the aspirations of the broad masses of workers in both Britain and America. In his speech at the sixth constitutional convention of the CIO, Philip Murray declared that the “time has come to depart from mere pious expressions, the moment for action is at hand. We must accomplish international labor unity now as an imperative need for the most effective prosecution of a people’s war and for a people’s peace."  [124•2  The convention adopted a resolution in the same spirit. It said, in part: “In this great struggle for national survival the CIO believes that our basic principles can only be protected and assured through international labor collaboration. This is an immediate and imperative need to weld the unity of labor, the governments, and the peoples of the United Nations to assure the most effective prosecution of the war against the Axis."  [124•3 

p The convention now called upon the CIO leadership to undertake a number of urgent measures. The resolution stated further: “Therefore, be it resolved, that the President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations is hereby authorized to immediately communicate with the heads of the AFL and 125 Railroad Brotherhoods and of the labor movements of the United Nations, to convey the urgent desire of the CIO to associate with these labor organizations in the convening of an international trade union conference of representatives of the labor movements of all the United Nations.”   [125•1 

p An AFL convention was held almost at the same time as the CIO convention. The report of the Committee on International Relations stated: “Collaboration with the British Trades Union Congress should be continued; the A. F. of L. is unable to collaborate with government-controlled Russian unions."  [125•2 

p The difference between the AFL and CIO resolutions indicated two entirely different approaches to the question of international working-class unity. In January 1944, the AFL declined the TUC’s offer to take part in the World Trade Union Conference set for June of that year.

p The CIO, on the contrary, gave its full support to the conference, and accepted the TUC’s invitation to take part in it. However, the conference was not convened in June. One of the reasons for the failure was that British union leaders themselves were not very energetic in the struggle for unity. They were quite active in another direction. In 1944, IFTU missions, headed by Citrine and Schevenels, visited Italy, France and Belgium, everywhere conveying the message that “the IFTU was very much alive and that it was in a position to contribute to a very great extent to the creation of the World Federation embracing all Trade Unions".  [125•3  The Soviet trade unions, meanwhile, continued to work tirelessly to expedite the convocation of the conference. The fourth session of the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee in October 1944 decided to convene the conference in January or February 1945, for which purpose a preparatory committee including representatives from the TUC, AUCCTU and CIO was set up.

p The CIO held its seventh national convention in November 1944, in Chicago, where the question of creating an international federation of trade unions was one of the most 126 important on the agenda. The convention adopted a resolution to take part in the work of the preparatory committee and in the proceedings of the constituent conference of trade unions in London, planned for the beginning of 1945.  [126•1  In his speech, Murray elaborated on the question of creating an international trade union center. Criticizing the Amsterdam International, he said that even if its constitution were amended to give the CIO the right to membership status, the CIO would still favor the creation of a new international labor organization. Murray’s position was influenced not only by progressive forces, but also by the rivalry that existed between the AFL and CIO. Soon after the fourth session of the Anglo-Soviet Committee, the AFL executive council decided to boycott the forthcoming conference. This decision was ratified by the 64th convention, held on November 20, 1944, in New Orleans.  [126•2 

p In early December 1944, the preparatory committee held a meeting, at which the CIO delegation took a firm position. When their British partners tried to push through the idea of reviving the Amsterdam International, Sidney Hillman, on behalf of the CIO, issued an emphatic protest in line with the above decision of the seventh CIO convention in Chicago.

p In the meantime, the AFL leaders were still thinking in terms of reviving the Amsterdam International. Nor did the TUC completely discard the idea; however, the British felt it possible to somewhat reorganize the International to adapt it to the new situation. But the general council of the IFTU, with the active participation of the AFL leadership, refused to favor a change in the IFTU’s constitution to permit the entrance of the CIO and the Soviet trade unions.  [126•3 

Finally, despite the opposition from the AFL representative, the Emergency Council of the Amsterdam International decided to send a project for the reconstruction of the IFTU to the forthcoming International Trade Union Congress in London.  [126•4