The Counter-Revolutionary Function of Trade Unions Before and After the Revolution

The trade unions, that is, those organizations which proclaim themselves the defenders of the interests of the working class, are today considered by us as counter-revolutionary organs. Why? It is not difficult to demonstrate. The revolutionary syndicalists proclaim loudly, and with them the anarcho-syndicalists, that only the trade unions are revolutionary. The Bolsheviks say: yes, the trade unions are revolutionary because we are at their head. The syndicalists throw at us the famous letter from Marx to Kugelmann and say: look, Marx was a one hundred percent syndicalist. The Bolsheviks throw at us Lenin's theory of conquest and say: with the Communist Party we will make communist trade unions. We could, practicing Marxist scholasticism, quote a passage which concludes Marx's study on "Rate of Profit and Wages" in which the German dialectician realizes that the trade unions on which he had placed so much hope were not fulfilling their tasks. But, in homage to Marx and his materialist dialectic, we will not write the history of the revolutionary movement with quotations, like a professor of a German academy, or like a student of the Bolshevik school. We will look history in the face and we will see that this trade union movement sought to oppose, as simple resistance, the tendency of the capitalists to lower wages to the minimum possible, and that it developed within the working class the conviction that, within the framework of bourgeois society, the proletariat could obtain real improvements. Wage increases were indeed obtained by them and it is in this way that, above the working class, what was called the labour aristocracy was formed, something that Engels was already obliged to admit in 1892.

At the top of these organizations, a caste of functionaries was formed whose sole task was to sit around a table to discuss with the bosses and to calm the seditious tendencies of the working class. They were those classic firemen, well known in Italy, who, using brazen demagogy, opposed the proletarian victory with a thousand tricks. The proletarians have only to look at this or that country, at this or that trade union movement, to realize that there is no difference between the peaceful English, Australian and American trade unionists and the excited French unions of the pre-war period — those of today are calmer, even if they still call themselves revolutionaries —, between the stiff German bonzes and our smooth-talking Italian confederalists. Even the Borghi-style anarchist syndicalists do not escape this scrutiny; they were only competitors of the confederals. In all these organizations, it is the Bonzocracy that prevails. And it is this Bonzocracy, this corruption that it has sown within the working class, as well as these illusions of an idyllic evolution towards universal democracy, which allowed that, when the war broke out, almost all these organizations rallied to the bourgeoisie by denying the class struggle in the name of national unity. It will be said that this is not how it happened in Italy: but it will not be denied either that these organs did nothing to sabotage the war. And it will be noted furthermore that they did everything, in agreement with all the parties, so that the occupation of the factories would be transformed into a proletarian defeat. And it was not without reason that the Bonzocracy acted in this way, because in a certain way it was defending its interests. The occupations of the factories, certain heralding movements in Turin and the episode of the Miani and Silvestri in Naples, allowed us to glimpse the first glimmers of a new proletarian mentality, the seeds of new organisms which in themselves announced the decline of the Bonzocracy. The working class threatened to find its unity and autonomy by itself, the path to get rid of the State, of the union and party functionaries. It was no longer, in Veneto and Puglia, the mass that the unionists and the confederals pushed like the castrator pushes the bull into the arena by dangling in front of them an ever-increasing wage increase, and it was not the mass of maneuver to which the revolution was announced every day for the next day. And this is why the union bigwigs, seeing the threat on the horizon, abandoned the workers' movement into the arms of reaction.

Then the communists appeared, shouting at the top of their lungs about treason, proclaiming that these organizations had failed in their mission since their leaders were reformists and trade unionists. "Put communists in their place and you will see," they said and repeated to the workers. And indeed we saw that when the communists were put in the place of the others, they did the same thing, they squandered the strike funds, they discussed calmly around a table with the bosses and they played firefighters. Such was the practical application of Lenin's theory of the conquest of the unions, the revolutionary policy of the declared enemies of the bonzes. Bordiga and the others whipped the mandarins, the reformist circus, they gnashed their teeth against the bureaucracy and, in conclusion, they created Bolshevik bonzes, Bolshevik firefighters. As a conquest, it is not bad... And we must not think that the formation of new union organizations, supposedly revolutionary, can cure the evil in the future. Indeed, the leaders of these new organizations also become mandarins, they also discuss around a table with the bosses, also play firefighters, no more and no less than the others.

But why do they all do the same thing? Comrade worker, it is not difficult for you to realize: if these people bring you, in the union, to discuss with the boss, it is because they do not believe in the class struggle, in civil war and in revolution. If these people propose to you to make peace with the bosses, it is because they do not want you to beat this boss. And you, comrade worker, you are too weak, you play the game of this erroneous policy because you let yourself be pushed in the union so that you accept the compromise. If you had realized that your boss is your enemy, as are all bosses in general, that they, because of their profit, prevent the social development of production, that, because of their enjoyment, they want the misery of the entire working class, you would not join the trade unions of whatever color they may be, and you would tell other exploited people like you that they must be destroyed. But then, you will say, they do not defend my interests? What interests? The fact that a wage increase is even granted to you happens because you are gnashing your teeth, because the strength of your class weighs, because people are afraid of your revolt. The trade unions seek rather to divert you from your class objective, from the workers' revolution.

But you will still say: and are not strikes a good thing? Yes, comrade worker, strikes are a very good thing when one begins to fight, and very bad when one capitulates. Look, if we, for example, during a strike, wanted to beat up a boss, to knock out the henchmen who defend him and who provoke us, what do the representatives of the unions do? They call on us to calm down! When afterwards we have had the little penny of a raise, they declare that we have won a magnificent victory. Think carefully, comrade proletarian: when we go on strike, do we only want the raise? Is there not something more in our gesture: a feeling of revolt, a desire for freedom, for real improvement? Well, what do the representatives of the unions do: they stifle our feelings of revolt and direct our attention to the simple increase in wages. And yet you know that this increase in salary is ephemeral, that your material and moral condition remains the same. And you know very well that there are not only economic strikes, but also solidarity strikes, major political strikes. Well, what do the representatives of the unions do: fine speeches, calling for calm, saying that tomorrow we will fight for the greatest ideal, for the new society. Has it never occurred to you to ask them: what about today? You know very well that they will do nothing, neither today nor tomorrow, and that in the orbit of the union you too will be unable to do anything.

But what should I do? Well, get closer to your work comrades and communicate your ideas to them, tell them that the working class is self-sufficient, that strikes are just, are beautiful, if they turn into revolt. Sabotage the machine when the boss crushes you or throws you out. Shoot the cops when they come to defend the boss's interests. With your action, you are starting a civil war.

But when the revolution is made, there will be a need for trade unions: well, if there is a reason to destroy the trade unions, it lies precisely in the fact of defending the revolution. The working class does not need bureaucracy, bonzocracy: why should it constitute, defend, organizations which, as in Russia today, are the Nessus tunic of the proletariat?

There are people who think they can conquer the fascist corporations in Italy, there are those who want to destroy them in order to recreate new trade union organizations. To what end? What will we do with these organizations when we have overthrown capitalism in Italy? We manage production; we think of our interests; what should we do with this useless thing? Do some people think that the unions should control the activity of the soviets, of the councils? But the councils will be something that is composed of the masses, of the workers in the factory, and so what is this control? Control by mandarins? By bigwigs? So that they can give us shock brigades and a new work discipline? Red directors and a Ford-style work system?

The theory of union control is turning into the tyranny of the bonzes in reality. And we will wring the necks of the bonzes, with or without their approval.