2>Andrés Nin

The Revolutionary Syndicalists and
the Red International of Labor Unions

(3 October 1922)


From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 2 No. 85, 3 October 1922, pp. 642–643.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.


Perceiving the unpopularity of their attempts at secession, the organizers of the International Syndicalist Conference of Berlin are now, by a manoeuvre made awkward through delay, trying to throw upon the Red International of Labor Unions the heavy responsibility they themselves assumed. Judge that by the following communication from the Berlin Bureau:

“We learn through the press that the Executive Committee of the R.I.L.U. has deferred the Second Congress of the R.I.L.U., which ought to have taken place on the 23rd of October, to the 20th of November, 1922. Being informed that one of the reasons for which the International Conference of Berlin had decided to convoke the International Congress of Revolutionary Syndicalists on the 12th or 19th of November was its profound and conscientious desire not to force the break (sic! with the R.I.L.U.) and to give the Congress of Moscow the opportunity to correct the policy of disruption pursued up to now by the R.I.L.U. in the revolutionary syndicalist movement of the world, the International Bureau of Revolutionary Syndicalists, faithful to the spirit of the mandate given it by the Berlin Conference, and anxious not to close irrevocably the door to all possibility for common action, now convokes the World Congress of Revolutionary and Industrial Syndicalists at Berlin for the 25th of December 1922 and the following days. – The International Bureau: Rudolph Rocker, General Secretary.”

Thus those, who at the Berlin Conference, laid down the basis for a new International and repulsed all the adherents or sympathizers of the R.I.L.U., now express the “profound and conscientious desire not no force the break”, and declare themselves “anxious not to close the door to all possibility of common action”. Well then! The militants of every country do not possess such short memories that they have already forgotten on which side are found the dividers of the proletariat. It is not we, who in December 1920, attempted at Berlin, at the “preliminary” Syndicalist Conference, to sabotage the Constitutional Congress of the R.I.L.U.; it is not we who, despite the decision adopted by the organization, prevented the German Syndicalists from participating in that same Congress; it is not we who, in October 1921, passed a resolution at Düsseldorf to convoke a conference for the purpose of creating a new International!

Finally, it is necessary to recall the campaign conducted tor more than a year in the Syndicalist press against the R.I.L.U. and against the men who are at the head of the Russian Revolution. – As they sabotaged us at the Conference in June, who can be made to swallow the statement that their organizers have "the profound and conscientious desire not to force the break". Pick up the Bulletin issued at the time of the Conference, and you will find, on page 12 of the French edition, the following:

“To Syndicalists, the international point of view appears as follows: Just as the revolutionary syndicalists have independent organizations in the different countries, so they ought to create an independent Syndicalist International. Union or an international basis with those who have not yet come to an agreement in their own countries, is an absurdity.”

It is clear, is it not? But continue to turn over the pages of this Bulletin and on page 20 you will find this title, which tells enough about the wish to unite of the organizers of the Conference: Towards a Syndicalist International. Why? Is, then, a new Revolutionary Syndicalist International necessary?

We could multiply these quotations, but every serious militant knows what they contain. It is in Moscow that they earnestly work for the true unity of the working class and for the Revolution. The revolutionary proletariat has understood very well that the Conference at Berlin was a pitiable failure, and that the pretended Syndicalist International will be merely a skeleton organization without contact with the masses and without revolutionary efficacy.

As for us, we will continue at our task in Moscow, in the capital of the first victorious Proletarian Revolution; we will continue at the Second Congress of the R.I.L.U. We will set up a powerful Red Trade Union organization without regard to those who, in Berlin, under the benevolent watch of the bourgeoisie and the police – well informed are they on which side the real danger lies! – will struggle hard to establish “solemnly”, a proletarian International, – nay more! – without “nations” and without the “proletariat”!


Last updated on 9 August 2020