The International Working Mens Association I.W.M.A: Its policy, it aims, its principles

Contributor Notes:
This text was kindly scanned and donated by the Workers Solidarity Alliance New York Local's library for libcom. It was written by the IWA to the IWW in large part, as a discussion was taking place both within the IWW and more broadly about the possibility of affiliation. The IWA takes on arguments against the IWW affiliating as an international and an industrial union. Additionally the basic tenets of the IWA and it's positions are layed out. It was published in 3 parts in the IWW's internal General Organizational Bulletin.

Previously clandestine agents working under the direction of Moscow were spreading rumors and misinformation about the IWA within the IWW, before being discovered and removed. The Chilean IWW affiliated with the IWA, and the powerful Marine Transport Union of the IWW would also affiliate in the 1930s. The US-IWW never did, having voted once for affiliation but failing to capture a majority upon a second vote when questions around the religious neutrality of the IWW was raised amongst the membership (interestingly not around the abolition of the State). This piece shows a section of that history from the IWA's perspective, and issues perhaps that continue to be debated today amongst revolutionary unionists.

I: Origin of the I.W.M.A.

To be able to say what is the International Working Men's Association, founded in Berlin in 1922, it would be necessary to give, at first, a brief outline of what is commonly known in the history of the international labor movement as the First International.

This body - with its full name "The International Working Men's Association" - came to life as the outcome of a visit paid by French workmen to their British brethren, on the occasion of the International Exhibition held in London, in 1862, and of a meeting held, again in London, in 1864. It was, thus, the English workers that were first to launch the idea of a Labor International.

The International Association held its regular conventions, and soon after its inception, fell under the control of Karl Marx and his followers. That is to say, that its tendencies were authoritarian and centralistic. Nevertheless, the ideas of Bakunin were always strong, especially within the latin sections of the International (Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain), and not until 1972 did the federalist principles of organization, which were those of Bakunin and his friends, take the upper hand in the councils of the International.

The machinery of State and Capital was put in motion in all the countries to counteract the influence of that body. Affiliation to it became illegal. Police persecution drove many of its members to imprisonment. Its press was being throttled at every step. It gave its last gasp in 1875.

Over fifty years passed since; yet, the spirit of that first International is alive up to this day among revolutionary workers, all the world over.

And the more labor gets invaded by State socialism and class cooperation, the more the sincere and conscious elements of the working class felt, and continue to feel, the need of an international link which would fight on all the fronts - locally, nationally and internationally - against the encroachments of the State on the liberties of the people.

Already in 1913 - in London once again, - a first attempt was made to unite the various trade unions whose spirit of freedom and independence craved for outward expression in its willingness to struggle against State and Capitalism.

The world war broke mercilessly all such attempts.

And then came, in 1917, the Russian Revolution.

With the bursting upon the world of this event of first magnitude, which not only hastened the end of the international slaughter, but changed the entire trend of world politics and economics, a great wave if enthusiasm and hope swept the labor world at large.

A regrouping of labor forces thus became inevitable. There was, at first, the sharp line of demarcation between those who still thought that class cooperation was the better road to solve the social inequalities, and those who, refusing them as misleading and anti-revolutionary, turned towards the slogans of the Russian Revolution - Free Soviets, decentralization of State, the Land to the peasants, and the Factories to the workers - as the only road apt to lead to the integral emancipation of the working class.

Nevertheless, it soon became clear that the Russian Revolution, under the lead of orthodox Marxists - i.e. State socialists and centralists, - was fatally deviating from its straight course. The so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat", which was nothing else but the dictatorship of a political party, possessing the entire machinery of the State, over the proletariat, withheld from the working class of Russian any right of self-organization and proclaimed the intangibility and sacrosantity of the Marxian State.

This meant, of course, the entire abolition of individual as well as collective freedom, autocratic Monarchy being superseded by autocratic government by Party Caucus.

The development of the Russian Revolution on these lines brought about, unavoidably, another sharp line of demarcation between, on the one hand, the revolutionary State socialist labor movement, as represented by the Russian trade unions wholly controlled by the Political Party (the Bolshevists), in its turn controlling, or rather actually being, the State, and, on the other hand, the revolutionary syndicalist labor movement which, after the close of the war, developed in all European countries and, for a very short space of time, laid great hopes upon the possible effect of the Russian Revolution on international labor developments.

Thus, the working class was faced with a three-cornered tug-o-war: class cooperation, class subjugation to a political party which controls the political and economic life of the country, and class independence from any political party, the working class fighting out its own salvation and organizing, through its own bodies, the political and economic system, free from any yoke - whether social, political, financial or religious.

The system of all-round oppression, elaborated and systematically carried out by the Bolshevist Party in Russia, has hastened the urgent necessity of an international linking-up of all truly revolutionary trade and industrial organizations of the working class in all countries.

This linking up was not needed for the selfish purpose of possessing yet another International. It was needed for the working out of a practical program for a world wide struggle against Capitalism, against the State which lends its entire machinery of police and army for the defense of Capitalism, and on behalf of the fundamental principles of reconstruction of Society on the antiauthoritarian basis of federalism, freedom at all stages and solidarity.

II: Fundamental principles of the I.W.M.A.

It is with this purpose that the present International Working Men's Association has been founded in 1922, inspired by those same principles and those same ideals that underlined the activities of its forerunner, the First International, viz: "that the emancipation of the working classes must be the work of the workers themselves".

The guiding principles of the I.W.M.A. are best set out in the ten definitions of Revolutionary Syndicalism adopted at its 1-st and 2-nd Conventions, and forming part of its general Declaration of Principles (for text, see Appendix).

These principles have been adopted unanimously by all the countries affiliated to the I.W.M.A. This, in itself, is of great portent. Each country has its own traditions, its own methods of work, its own outlook upon events. Yet, the fundamental guiding lines remain the same for all. And if some revolutionary labor movements are not yet represented in the councils of the I.W.M.A, this is due to the fact that either certain misunderstandings have not, as yet, been entirely dissipated, or that wanton misrepresentation of the aims, policy and principles of the I.W.M.A. have not permitted the rank and file to obtain a plain straightforward and frank statement of the cause.

An outstanding example of undefined relations with the I.W.M.A. are the Industrial Workers of the World of America.

The I.W.M.A. had repeatedly appealed to the I.W.W. to clear up the matter as to its stand on international revolutionary labor problems and on international affiliation.

The whole case, on the side of the I.W.W., rested finally upon two cardinal points: First, that the I.W.W. were, in themselves, an international organization - its very name suggesting it - and that there was, therefore, no necessity of affiliating to another international body. Secondly, that the system of organization of the I.W.W. - in industrial unions - was opposed to the system of organization of the Syndicalists - in trade and craft unions.

Let us examine these two arguments.

Can the I.W.W. be considered an international body?

It is true, the I.W.W. is composed of workers of various nationalities: it is true that its language sections have their own papers, published in their respective languages. But we must remember that the fact of a considerable immigration to U.S.A. and the inevitable mixing of nations and races had induced many other labor bodies in America to proclaim themselves "International", using that word not in the sense of a union of various national, or geographical, units, but in that of a union of individuals happening to belong to various nations.

Thus, it came about that the Industrial Workers of the World do not actually unite the workers of the world, but just those of various nations of the world working within the political and geographical boundaries of the United States of America.

Had it been otherwise, the Canadian I.W.W., or the I.W.W. of Chile, could have had as much right to consider themselves an international body as those of the United States.

The I.W.W. is, therefore, a body composed of members belonging to various nationalities, but is limited, it its activities, by the frontiers of the United States. It is, therefore a national body and not an international organization.

Whereas the I.W.M.A. is a body which, happening to have its executive seat in this or that country, includes the national organizations of various countries. As a matter of fact, the I.W.W. of Chile was an affiliated body of the I.W.M.A., from the very first day of the latter's foundation.

Now, as to the second argument, attempting to set up a contradiction between Syndicalism and Industrialism.

This argument is based on an utter misknowledge of the European labor movement.

It is true that, formerly, labor unions were built on the "trade" or "professional" index, whether in American or elsewhere.

The reorganization of Capital on an industrial basis having started, on a large scale, in America, it stands to reason that the working class of that country was first to feel the crying discrepancy between the forms of organization of Capitalism and those of Labor. The fight between these two forces was unequal; it compelled the latter to reorganize its forces industrially, too.

The same process can be traced in Europe, at a slower rate, perhaps, just as the industrialization of Capitalism is also being carried out at a slower pace.

At present, almost all the unions affiliated to the I.W.M.A. are organized on an industrial basis.

All the Conventions of the International insist upon the necessity of reorganizing the revolutionary labor movement on that basis. One of the countries that has remained outside this scheme, and which had stuck to the "trade" union principle, was Spain. Yet, even there, at the Extraordinary Congress of the National Confederation of Labor, held in June 1931, i.e. barely two months after the overthrow of the Monarchy, the reorganization of the revolutionary unions of Spain on the principle of Industrial Federations was carried by an overwhelming majority of the 600,000 workers represented at that Convention.

It is clear, therefore, not only from the resolutions adopted at the various Conventions of the I.W.M.A., but especially from the actual scheme of organization of its various affiliated bodies, that industrial unionism is one of the main planks of international revolutionary syndicalism.

Besides, it must be remembered that industrial unionism is not, in itself, a revolutionary plank. Thus, the Russian labor organizations which have adopted industrial unionism, are far from being revolutionary unions. Their complete subservience to a political party and to the Bolshevist State render them inevitably unfit to work out their own salvation. The same may be said about various other labor organizations in Europe.

III: Aims and policy of the I.W.M.A.