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Title: The Policy of the International
Author: Alexander Schapiro
Date: February 1933
Language: en
Topics: IWA-AIT, anarcho-syndicalism, Vanguard
Source: Retrieved on 04.02.22 from https://libcom.org/library/vanguard-vol-1-no-6-february-1933
Notes: Published in ‘Vanguard’: Vol. 1, No. 6, February 1933.

Alexander Schapiro

The Policy of the International

The International Working Men’s Association was founded in 1922 at the

moment of an inner crisis in the labor movements of various counties.

The shadow of the awakened Russian giant overhung the world capitalism,

and notwithstanding the obvious tendencies towards a break between the

Soviet government and the Russian workers, the world proletariat, and

especially its left wing, continued to regard the economic development

of the U.F.S.S.R. as the partial realization of its drive towards

freedom.

The Red Trade Union International, set up a year before by the Russian

Communist Party, drew within the sphere of its activity the

revolutionary syndicalist movement of a number of countries. France,

Spain, Italy were represented at its first congress. There still loomed

the possibility of a collaboration between those who believed in the

state and centralization – and the anti-authoritarian federalist

syndicalists.

In vain. Already in 1921, the class conscious section of the working

class became clearly aware of the imperialist and usurping plans of the

bolsheviks. They felt that the soviet state was yet to play an odious

role in the development of the socialist and anti-authoritarian ideas

all over the world. And they clearly realized that only an organization

of truly revolutionary forces will be able, on the one hand, to put the

brakes upon the dictatorial, corrupting activity of the leaders of the

Lenin school, and on the other hand, to impart new vigor and power to

the world proletariat in its struggle against capitalism and bolshevism,

against the White and the Red state – a struggle becoming fiercer from

day to day.

The International Working Men’s Association, born under the direct

influence of Bakunin’s International, set before itself, as the direct

aim, the banding of all revolutionary elements of the international

workers’ movement into one solid union. If we take into account the

heterogeneity of the ideological trends, cris-crossing the federalist

labor movement – from the pure, self-sufficient syndicalism to the

inveterately dogmatic anarchism – the heterogeneity of the methods of

struggle advocated in various countries, the differences in the

organizational systems of the labor unions and the diametrically

opposite temperaments of their workers – then we shall see how difficult

and complicated was this task of unification.

This first period of the inner organization of the I.W.M.A. has already

come to an end. There is no country, in Europe or America, where the

ideas proclaimed by the International did not strike root; in most of

the countries sections of our International develop and expand. And if

in some countries the dictatorship did succeed in stifling all

revolutionary activity, this cannot last very long. At the first glimmer

of the rising dawn, the strangled I.W.M.A. organizations of Italy,

Portugal and South America will regain their own; and new sections,

dedicated to the principles of anti-authoritarianism and federalism,

will spring up in those countries where they had been prohibited until

now, like Russia or Poland, for instance.

The International Working Men’s Association is independent of any

political party; it is not linked with any one of them, struggling

against all of them. It proclaims as its ultimate goal, the free

communistic society, developed upon the basis of an anarchistic

federalism. At the same time the I.W.M.A. proclaims that the world

proletariat, apart from the realization of the immediate demands

touching the betterment of present day labor conditions, must set before

itself the realization of its ultimate aims as an immediate task by

working out a political, economic, and social system, which, on the day

after the crumbling of the old order, should take the place of

Capitalism and the State and do away with the economic exploitation, the

religious and social oppression.

In view of the clear and exact statement which leaves no room for any

misunderstanding, the attitude of the International toward other labor

organizations becomes equally clear and precise: in the struggle for

immediate betterment of labor conditions, for the purpose of obtaining

greater success, agreements and joint action with the national and local

organizations are desirable and permissable.

True, even in the field of these partial improvements the I.W.M.A. and

its national sections run up very often against the narrow and out-lived

reformism of other labor organizations, as the so-called “Amsterdam”

unions. Thus, for instance, at the Liege congress of 1928, the I.W.M.A.

brought forth the slogan of immediate struggle for the six-hour working

day. This demand, the value of which is probably greater than the

struggle for an eight-hour day which began half a century ago, is only

now considered by the reformists without a smile; but, alas, they do it

not so much under pressure of their own united working masses as of the

ever growing unemployment and the fact that even among the capitalists

this problem becomes the burning question of the day.

In its international activities the I.W.M.A., notwithstanding its

readiness to take part in the united action of all the labor factions of

world socialism, finds it impossible to enter into any agreement on

principle with “Amsterdam” and still less with “Moscow,” which shows

very little regard for its own proletariat whom it claims to represent.

Still less does the I.W.M.A. hope that the worker’s organizations of the

reformist and bolshevist make will undertake a joint revolutionary

action for the carrying out of social measures which would lead

necessarily to the overthrow of the Capitalist system and the downfall

of the centralized state.

However numerically weak the I.W.M.A. might be, it must set before

itself the problem of fulfilling the second task: to transfer the idea

of the social revolution from the domain of a myth into that of actual

reality.

In other words, the I.W.M.A., in full agreement with its national

sections and under their direct influence, upon the basis of their

practical suggestions must work out a general plan of economic,

political and social reconstruction of the existing order. The present

economic mess, which is the direct result of the confusion reigning in

the ranks of world capitalism, opens up great opportunities to that

revolutionary organization which is desirous of doing constructive work.

There are no insoluble social tasks if, underlying their method of

solution, there will be the idea of self-organization, personal and

collective freedom and anti-authoritarian federalism.

The I.W.M.A. is the only workers organization which is built upon these

foundation stones of free socialism. It is the only organization capable

of undertaking the task of reconstruction. What then must be the policy

of the International in regard to vital questions facing the

contemporary world and especially the working class? This policy must

consist in studying, in all its details, the present mechanism of

agricultural and industrial production, of exchange and distribution. It

must clear the ground for the interference of the labor organizations

into the process of production by creating organs of control in the

mills, factories, offices and agricultural units. On the basis of the

data afforded by the study of these problems, revolutionary cadres of

the new social reconstruction process must be created – economic shock

batallions, which, on the morrow of the downfall of capitalism, will be

able the undertake in a practical manner the organization of a new

system of social interrelationships which, by virtue of the above

mentioned basic principles, will be capable of uniting the workers of

all the world. This policy of the I.W.M.A. is not the policy of its

executive committee or the secretariat, but the one carried out by the

revolutionary organizations of each country. The critical situation in

which every country finds itself at the present time brings forth the

fundamental problems of the social structure and regime, a circumstance

which demands from the revolutionary movement of each and every country

bold, heroic solutions and practical methods of application.

As to the executive and coordinating organs of the I.W.M.A., their duty

must be to unify all that work, all these attempts at social

organization, all these sketches of economic solutions – and to put them

at the disposal of the international proletariat in the form of a broad

program of social reconstruction, the necessary premise of which must be

the General Strike and the Social Revolution.

The I.W.M.A. can and must undertake this work. It will bring this task

to a successful end just as it succeeded in uniting the general

revolutionary elements of the whole world. Besides, such a program of

action and social reconstruction will have a quickening effect upon that

section of the working class which is still under the influence of

politicians of the reformist and dictatorial ranks.

The great work of the I.W.M.A. is just beginning. It needs the backing

not only of the national sections and unions but also of all those

elements who are permeated with the anti-authoritarian and federalist

spirit. It needs in the first place the support of the revolutionary

Anarchists. With that support the I.W.M.A. will be able to proclaim

widely its program of action and building up which will confound the

reactionary forces of the bourgeois and Marxist capitalism.