The Founding Congress of the International Workers Association

The founding of the International Workers Association at its constitutive congress in Berlin in 1922 was a long wished for goal of revolutionary syndicalists and anarchists around the world. The First International had been wound up at the congress in Philadelphia in 1875, and definitively dissolved in July of the following year. The end of the First International due to the clash between Marx and his followers and those who opposed him, including the grouping around Bakunin, Belgian socialists and British trade unionists, was a severe setback for the international workers’ movement. The so-called Anti-Authoritarian International founded at St Imier in Switzerland in 1872 had also foundered by 1877. Many revolutionary syndicalists felt the need for a new International, especially as the social-democratic parties had created their own international, the Second International, in 1889. This had been followed by the reformist trade unions creating their own international, The International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres (ISNTUC) in 1901. When this collapsed because of the First World War, the reformist unions created the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) at a congress in Amsterdam in July 1919. This united unions from United States, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Great Britain, Holland, Luxemburg, Norway, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Czechoslovakia. It represented 17.7 million workers and had a social-democratic orientation.

The first mass revolutionary syndicalist, anarchosyndicalist and industrial unionist unions had emerged at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century and included the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founded 1905, and the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (Workers Regional Federation of Argentina-FORA) the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour-CGT) founded in France in 1895, the Italian Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI), the Swedish Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC) founded in 1910 and the Dutch industrial federations, The Spanish CNT founded in 1910.

The International Syndicalist Congress of 1913

The first attempt to create a new international from these various unions took place in London in 1913. This, the International Syndicalist Congress, took place at Holborn Town Hall between September 27th to October 2nd, at the initiative of the Dutch Nationaal Arbeids-Secretariaat (National Labour Secretariat –NAS) and the British Industrial Syndicalist Education League (ISEL). Solidaridad Obrera (Workers Solidarity) in Catalonia, a precursor of the CNT, supported the move. However, the French CGT opposed the convening of such a congress. It was still within the ISNTUC and feared internal ructions as its reformist wing was strengthening at the expense of the anarchist and revolutionary syndicalist wing.

Thirty eight delegates representing sixty five organisations met and passed the following resolution:

The first International Syndicalist Congress recognises that the working class of all countries suffers the same repression by the State and the capitalist system. For this reason, it declares itself in favour of class struggle, international solidarity and independent organisation of the working class on the basis of the federative union. This tends to the immediate material and moral elevation of the working class until the total destruction of capitalism and the State. This declares, furthermore, that the class struggle is a necessary consequence of the private possession of the means of production and distribution, and that, therefore, this Congress tends to the socialisation of these means. In this sense, the constitution and development of trade union organisations should be oriented, since they are in the best conditions to ensure the production and distribution of products for the benefit of society as a whole. Verifying that the international unions cannot successfully carry out the class struggle if the workers continue to be divided by political and religious differences, the Congress declares that the class struggle, as such, can only have an economic character, for which the workers' organisations should not seek the stated goal through collaboration with the government or with its allies, and that they should rely solely on the power of the organisations and their direct action. As a consequence of this declaration, the Congress calls on the workers of all countries to unite in independent, federal, industrial organisations, on the basis of international solidarity, in order to liberate themselves completely from the oppression exerted by the state and capitalism.

Thus, the principles of revolutionary syndicalism, affirmation of class struggle, international solidarity, socialisation of property and the abolition of capitalism and the State, rejection of parliamentary activity, and struggle on the economic level through direct action, were adopted by the congress. It was decided to follow this up with another congress the following year. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the First World War scuppered this. The NAS then sent out a circular calling for a new congress at the end of the war. Attempts to hold such a congress were foiled at every attempt, by the Dutch, Swedish and Danish governments. The First World War brought many problems to the international syndicalist movement, with the French CGT supporting the War, apart from a small revolutionary minority around Pierre Monatte and Alphonse Merrheim, the heavy repression unleashed against the IWW in the United States, and the ructions within the USI over support for the war, culminating in the move towards a clear anarchist and internationalist position and the departure of the pro-war faction.

Other problems were caused by the repercussions of the Russian revolution.

The Red Trade Union International

The accession to power of the Bolsheviks in 1917 led on to the founding of the Third International, known under the Russian abbreviation of the Comintern, in 1919, uniting various Communist Parties under the control of Moscow. Alongside this was the founding of the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU), also known under the Russian abbreviation Profintern in July 1921. The Soviet leadership sought to unite those trade unions worldwide that were opposed to the so-called Amsterdam international, the IFTU. They worked towards an alliance of Communist controlled labour organisations, revolutionary syndicalist and anarcho-syndicalist unions, and the revolutionary opposition within Amsterdam unions, as well as anti-colonial movements around the world. They thus sought to establish hegemony over these diverse groupings and to recruit to the Communist Parties. At first the USI, the CNT, some French unions and currents within the FORA supported the RILU. For example, the CNT at its second congress in Madrid in December 1919 passed the following motion in relation to the Third International:

The National Confederation of Labour declares itself a firm defender of the principles that inform the First International, supported by Bakunin. It declares that it adheres, and provisionally, to the Third International, due to the revolutionary character that presides over it, while the International Congress is being organised and held in Spain, which will lay the foundations by which the true International of workers will be governed.

The CNT decided to send delegates to Moscow on a fact-finding mission. Only one of them managed to get there. This was Angel Pestaña, who attended the Second Congress of the Third International, in the summer of 1920. Pestaña began to have doubts about the overbearing attitude of the Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik trade union leader Solomon Lozovski insisted that revolutionaries not leave the reformist trade unions. This was objected to by Pestaña and the German anarcho-syndicalist Augustin Souchy. Further objections came over the subordination of revolutionary syndicalist organisations to the various Communist Parties.

Revolutionary syndicalist bodies were accused of being minority organisations. A hasty convened first congress of international trade unionists and syndicalists then took place on July 15th. Further experiences convinced Pestaña and the USI delegate, the anarchist Armando Borghi, that the differences between the syndicalists and the Bolsheviks were profound and hastened their departure from Russia in late August-early September. In October Pestaña met with German syndicalists for lengthy discussions in Berlin and then moved on to Italy. However, here he was detained and deported to Spain two months later. He was immediately arrested in Barcelona and spent the whole of 1921 in jail. This deprived the CNT of his views of the Bolshevik government. As a result, the CNT held a conference where it was decided to send further delegates to the Third Congress of the Third International in June 1921. These included Andreu Nin, Joaquín Maurín, Jesús Ibáñez, Hilario Arlandis and Gaston Leval. These participated in the first congress of the RILU. This conference confirmed the dominance of the Bolsheviks. Concerns about anarchist prisoners on hunger strike in the Taganka prison were raised, and led the Bolsheviks into being forced to agree to their deportation. Tensions rose as both Trotsky and Bukharin denounced Russian anarchists as “petty bourgeois” and “counter-revolutionary”. Alexander Schapiro was not allowed the podium to defend Russian anarchist syndicalists. The pro- and anti-Bolshevik currents within the CNT took part in heated debates. Both the anarchists and the “pure” syndicalists, who objected to any political activity, objected to the stance of Maurín, Nin, Ibáñez, and Arlandis, who they accused of being too accommodating to the Communists. As a result, the anarchist character of the CNT was strengthened and in the following period Maurín and Nin became founders of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, POUM). The fierce polemic led on to moves by the CNT to disaffiliate from the RILU, and this was reinforced by the reports of Pestaña when he finally emerged from prison in 1922. In June of that year, the CNT held a conference in Zaragoza where Pestaña’s testimony and Gaston Leval’s criticisms of his co-delegates led to the CNT turning against the Third International and the RILU. A large majority agreed that whilst the CNT had supported the Russian Revolution, this did not mean that it supported Bolshevik practice and theory.

However, as support for the Comintern had been agreed on at the congress of 1919, the CNT conference could not overturn the original decision. As a result, it was decided to suspend relations with RILU and continue to discuss within the different unions of the Confederation. The CNT was now looking towards helping create a new international, hooking up with the German syndicalists. The move by syndicalists in France and Italy to convene a conference in Paris seemed to provide a springboard for this.

Earlier, German anarchist syndicalists in the Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschlands- (German Free Workers Union FAUD)-meeting in Dusseldorf in October made efforts to unite opposition to Moscow within the revolutionary syndicalist unions. The meeting was also attended by delegates from the NAS, the SAC, and the IWW, and called for the convoking of an international syndicalist conference in Berlin, caused by the failure of the RILU to establish an international free from political influence. This was endorsed by telegram by the USI. The CGT in France had been much compromised by its support for the world war and its leadership under Léon Jouhaux had accepted posts on various government committees during the war. After the war it had pronounced reformists positions and was hostile to the Russian Revolution. As a result, the revolutionary minority within the CGT organised, after the Lyon congress of 1919, the Comités syndicalistes révolutionnaires (CSR) which grouped together anarchists, pure syndicalists and those now favourable to the Comintern. The CSR were the main force behind the split within the CGT which led to the appearance of the CGTU (“U” for Unitaire, Unified) which had its first conference in late June 1922. At first the anarchists were dominant within the CGTU. The happenings at the RILU congress exacerbated the differences within the CGTU. It was decided to send delegates to the Berlin congress proposed by the FAUD in June 1922. Similarly, the FORA was also dismayed by the RILU congress and enthusiastically endorsed the Berlin congress, whilst openly severely criticising Tom Barker, who had taken the FORA mandate to the RILU Congress. The IWW also decided by the end of 1921 that it could not consider membership of the RILU.

The June Conference in Berlin

The CGTU, SAC, NAS, FAUD. USI, CNT were all represented at the Berlin conference of June 16th -18th, as well as the Norsk Syndikalist Federation (NSF) of Norway and claimed to represent a total of 1,400,000 workers. The conference also recognised a delegation of Russian anarchist syndicalists in the shape of Alexander Schapiro and Mark Mrachnyi, who had left Russia for Germany. The conference had also invited the All-Russian Confederation of Trade Unions to attend. Andreyev, a representative of this Communist controlled body duly appeared on the second day of the conference and clashed with Mrachnyi, defending Red terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and demanding that Mrachnyi’s remarks be ruled inadmissible by conference. For some delegates wavering over what relationship they should have with the RILU, this was the last straw. The June conference was hardly a complete success. The CGTU delegation stated that it could not vote on any deliberations as its congress would be held in St. Etienne in two weeks and it thus had no mandate. The original libertarian dominance within the CGTU was being challenged by an increasingly belligerent Communist minority and by the syndicalists around Monatte, who were the target of a campaign by the RILU to win them over. Thus, it was unsure what the result of the St Etienne congress would be. Before Andreyev left the conference, he warned that “the RILU will go over the heads of the present leaders of the CGTU and the USI in order to organise the French and Italian workers’ movements according to its own directives”. As to taking a stand on the persecution of Russian anarchists, this was fudged by the conference. Louis Lecoin and Henri Toti, speaking for the French delegation, were concerned that the CGTU was close to being captured by the Communists and were sure that the Russians would send a representative to the St Etienne Congress. They appealed to the other delegates not to put a motion forward on the persecutions, which the latter reluctantly agreed to. More positively, conference agreed to a ten point declaration on syndicalism drafted by Rudolf Rocker of the FAUD and to the setting up of an International Bureau. Rocker concluded that “an existence in common with Moscow will become insufferable even for those filled with false hopes. In the meantime we will lose time and pessimism will infiltrate our ranks”. As a result, the creation of a revolutionary syndicalist international independent of Moscow was inevitable. Lozovski of the RILU denounced the forthcoming congress, accusing the syndicalists of sectarianism. The RILU executive broke off all correspondence with the International Syndicalist Bureau.

The Founding of the IWA

Over thirty delegates attended the illegal congress in Berlin from December 25th 1922 to January 2nd, 1923. They represented the USI, the FAUD, the SAC, the NAS, the NSF, and the Syndikalistik Propagandaforbund of Denmark, the FORA, and the CGT of Mexico. The Portuguese CGT sent its consent to the founding of the IWA as did the IWW of Chile, whose delegate only arrived after end of the congress. The delegates of the Spanish CNT were arrested in Paris before they reached Berlin. A delegate from the Federacion Obrera Regional Uruguaya (FORU) of Uruguay similarly arrived too late to take part. A number of consultative votes were given to the councilist union Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union Einheitsorganisation (AAUE), the Russian syndicalists in the form of Schapiro and Yarchuk, and the Czechoslovak Freie Arbeiter-Union. As to the French, the St Etienne Congress had led to the accession of the Communists in alliance with the syndicalists around Monatte and Monmousseau. As a result, the anarchist Pierre Besnard founded the Comité de Défense Syndicaliste- Committee of Syndicalist Defence (CDS) to organise those opposed to affiliation to the RILU. Besnard and Claudine Lemoine represented the CDS at Berlin but were in a delicate position. Whilst most of the delegations represented organisations that had rejected the RILU, the CDS was an organised minority within the CGTU which was negotiating with the RILU. The CDS grouping hoped to eventually win the day within the CGTU and were reluctant to force a split (there had been a split with the parent CGT only a year before) and called for unity of workers’ organisations nationally and internationally. Besnard and Lemoine were thus reluctant to create a new revolutionary syndicalist international. Lemoine and Dissel of the NAS delegation called for further negotiation with the RILU. Delegate after delegate rose to argue against this, stating that the founding of a new international could not be delayed. A dissenting member of the NAS, Bernard Lansink Jr., got up to state that he truly reflected the majority of NAS members whose referendum had rejected joining the RILU and were in favour of a new international. Rocker remarked that every syndicalist organisation contacted by the International Bureau in Europe and the Americas were in favour of a new international. He said that “We must finally declare clearly: the Third International and the RILU are not organisations of the revolutionary proletariat, they are agencies for the foreign policy of the Russian government”. He warned the French and Dutch that compromise with Moscow would oppose them to other revolutionary syndicalists worldwide. He and other delegates expressed surprise that the NAS leadership had ignored the referendum. The SAC then moved a resolution rejecting an appeal from the RILU to the syndicalists assembled at Berlin to join their international. Upon the passing of the motion, the NAS delegates withdrew from the congress. A resolution from the Argentinean, Danish, German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish delegations calling for the founding of a new international was then passed unanimously. However, French support was qualified. Besnard declared CDS support for the new International provided that it sought to unite all revolutionary workers willing to overthrow capitalism and the State. A united front should be sought with those organisations outside the new International. This was perfectly acceptable to nearly all delegates, but the CDS delegation went further and called for a formal instruction to the new Secretariat to approach the RILU for united action. This was vehemently opposed by the FORA as represented by Diego Abad de Santillan. The Argentineans believed that the FORA form of organisation, combining elements of Italian and Spanish anarchism, was a truer form of values expressed by Bakunin and his associates within the First International than within the European movement, influenced by socialist political parties and politically oriented union organisations. They were particularly suspicious of elements within the Spanish CNT which had initially joined the RILU. They regarded CNT leaders like Pestaña and Salvador Segui as “chameleons” for their initial support of Moscow. They believed that if the CNT delegates had not been detained, they would have backed the French/NAS motion. They noted “The FORA has clearly signalled its point of view for several years, and if it agreed to the creation of a new international it was with the belief that revolutionary syndicalism throughout the entire world had understood and appreciated its actions over the last several years. In its decision to create a new International of revolutionary workers it absolutely rejects political entities such as those of Amsterdam (Social-Democrats) and Moscow (Communists). Santillan argued vehemently for opposition to the RILU, saying that unity of the proletariat was a “metaphysical illusion” and to drop any moves by the CDS which would only deliver French workers to Moscow. However, an appreciation among delegates of the delicate situation of the CDS led to an endorsement on Revolutionary Unity, with the FORA abstaining. There were unfortunate disruptions by the German police who conducted passport checks and arrested 13 people, including at least three delegates. The Congress agreed to create a revolutionary syndicalist international, emphasising continuity with the past and the First International by calling it the International Workers Association (IWA/AIT). This was on the suggestion of the USI delegate Alibrando Giovanetti, secretary of its metalworkers’ union. It also adopted a ten-point document, the Principles of Revolutionary Syndicalism, drafted by Rocker at the June Congress. The controversy within NAS continued after the congress for a long time. Eventually in a referendum in May 1923, members voted by 53 to 47 per cent for affiliation to RILU. This eventually led to a secession of the dissidents and the founding of the Nederlands Syndicalistisch Vakverbond (NSV), urging NAS members “Do your duty as true revolutionaries, as libertarian communists, as organised syndicalists”. In November 1923 the NSV had won 8,000 out of 23,000 NAS members over and won a lot of support among metalworkers, textile and tobacco workers. It voted by the end of the year to join the IWA. In France, once Monmousseau had acceded to power within the CGTU, the French Communist Party (PCF) started expanding a network of Syndical Commissions controlled by it within the CGTU. This caused uproar among those members opposed to domination by political parties and for autonomy the situation was further aggravated by the murder of two anarchist workers, Poncet and Clos, by Communist thugs at the House of Unions in Rue Grange aux Belles in Paris on 11th January 1924. (1) The RILU, of course, took the side of the PCF. This eventually resulted in the founding of the CGT-Syndicaliste Revolutionnaire (CGT-SR) by Besnard and others in November 1926, which affiliated to the IWA. As to the FORA’s critical stand, any doubts about affiliation to the IWA disappeared when the motion on Revolutionary Unity was rescinded at the IWA’s Innsbruck conference in December 1923. They also felt vindicated by the losses the CDS had sustained in France, which seemed to them to confirm their warning. During 1923 and 1924 the Mexican CGT, the Uruguayan FORU and the Chilean IWW affiliated to the IWA, to be followed later by syndicalist unions in Brazil, Paraguay and other Central and South American countries. There was also a Japanese affiliate. As to the IWW of North America, only its Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union affiliated. The IWW had adopted a position of neutrality as regards to the Berlin congress and said that it would join neither the RILU nor the IWA.

Between 1923 the IWA had affiliates in thirty one countries. However, repression soon began to hit the IWA affiliates. The USI was destroyed by the Mussolini regime between 1922 and 1924. The Portugese CGT, which had a mass membership, was outlawed in 1926 and almost completely destroyed by 1934. The FAUD lost many of its members between 1923 and 1933 and then suffered destruction by the Nazi regime. The CGT-SR remained a minority union and disappeared with the Second World War. In Latin America, the FORA was outlawed after 1930 as the result of a military coup. The Mexican CGT evolved increasingly in a reformist direction from 1928 onwards. Nevertheless the 1922 Congress was important in its affirmation of revolutionary syndicalism, its recognition of class struggle, its avowal of free communism and its stand against Communist Party domination. It should be noted that the key statements emerging from the founding congress of the IWA referred to revolutionary syndicalism rather than anarchosyndicalism. The term “anarcho-syndicalism” was not then currently in use. It had originally been used as a pejorative term by the reformist socialists around Jules Guesde. Shortly after the end of the First World War, the Bolsheviks appropriated the term and continued to use it in a pejorative sense. Eventually the revolutionary syndicalist minority in France decided to reclaim it as a self-descriptor but Pierre Besnard was reluctant to use the term until 1937. Nevertheless, the IWA can be described as an anarcho-syndicalist organisation and it was with the foundation of the IWA that anarchosyndicalism as a current was affirmed on a global level.

(1) see my article at libcom: https://libcom.org/article/shootout-rue-grange-aux-belles-1924

Nick Heath

Sources:
Baer, James A. Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina. University of Illinois Press. Damier, Vadim. Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century. Black Cat Press
Guinchard, Francois. The birth of an international anarchosyndicalist current. Workers of the World: International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts, Volume I, Number 4.
Thorpe, Wayne. Revolutionary syndicalist internationalism 1913– 1923: the origins of the International Working Men’s Association. 1989 Thesis.
Tosstorf, Reiner. “Mission Impossible: Angel Pestana’s encounter as CNT delegate with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1920”. in: David Berry and Constance Bantman, eds, New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour, and Syndicalism: The Individual, the National and the Transnational. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

The article above originally appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review, Summer 2022.