The origins of the ‘A.F.L.-C.I.A.’ ‘Labor imperialism’ emerged after the First World War whereby a ruling class deeply hostile to labor legitimized conservative unions at home by enlisting them in the war effort, then utilized them internationally to undermine radical and anti-imperialist labor movements with bodies like the International Labor Organization. Resolution from the second congress of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS), a subdivision of the Red International of Labor Unions, held in Vladivostok during August, 1929.

‘International Agencies of Imperialism’ from Pan-Pacific Monthly (P.P.T.U.S.). No. 32. November, 1929.

1. The last imperialist world war has brought about a deep-going organic crisis in world capitalism. It has at the same time wrought deep-going and organic changes in the relation of classes; it has intensified the class struggle not only in the individual capitalist countries, but also internationally. The creation and constant growth and development of the USSR, the awakening of hundreds of millions of oppressed colonial and semi-colonial peoples against the imperialist yoke (China, India, Corea, etc.), the growing internationalization of the class struggle and of the class-consciousness of the working masses throughout the world, the existence and activities of such truly international labor organizations as the Red International of Labor Unions, the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, the Latin-American Trade Union Confederation, etc.–all of these facts compel the bourgeoisie and the various imperialist governments to seek new, more modern methods of combating the growing activization of the international working class, and newer weapons for counteracting the activities of such organizations as the PPTUS.

2. While in the individual capitalist countries the capitalist class with the combined force of its State apparatus, the press, the pulpit and military and police, do their utmost to keep the workers “in their place” (from “democratic” England and Australia, with their anti-trade union laws, Crimes Acts, etc. to the openly fascist Italy, Spain, etc.) the leading imperialist powers co-operate in the creation and development of special organs, or support those already created by the reformists, whose function it is to mislead, disorganize and demoralize international working class forces. Such organs are for example (a) the International Labor Office (Geneva); (b) the Amsterdam Trade Union International; (c) the Pan-American Federation of Labor and the proposed Pan-Asiatic Labor Conference; (d) the British Empire Labor Conferences; (e) the Institute of Pacific Relations (Honolulu); (f) the Spanish-American Trade Union Confederation, etc.

3. In view of the fact that all these organizations seek to win over to their side the labor movement in the various countries of the Pacific, and in some of these countries (e.g. Australia) they have actually succeeded in getting official trade union representatives to attend their conferences, the Second Conference of the PPTUS considers it necessary to characterize each of these agencies in order to warn the workers of the Pacific not to lend themselves to the pernicious anti-labor plans and designs carried out under the flag of labor by the imperialists.

a) The International Labor Office (Geneva) is nothing more or less than the open agency of the imperialist League of Nations. Its original function immediately after the war, when the revolutionary wave was at its height and the position of capitalism very dangerous, was to create among the working masses the illusion that the ruling classes were ready to fulfill their promises made by them during the war, i.e., promises of justice and reform. Now, after 10 years of existence barren of all benefits to the workers, the I.L.O. has sufficiently unmasked itself before the workers of the world. It was, is, and remains the tool of the imperialists. In these circumstances it becomes the duty of the Chinese, Indian and Japanese workers constantly to unmask the so-called “labor” representatives to Geneva, who are sent there at the expense of the capitalist governments and who speak at the I.L.O. sessions in the name of the organized workers of China, Japan, India, etc. We greet the repeated decisions of the New South Wales Labor Council to have nothing to do with the I.L.O., and urge the A.C.T.U. to follow this example. The purpose of the recent visit of the I.L.O. director, Albert Thomas, to the Far East, was not only to strengthen the reformist position generally, but specifically to establish I.L.O. offices in India and China, to serve as the organizing centers of imperialist influence among the colonial toiling masses. This work is being conducted in alliance with the Kuomintang murderers of Chinese workers, and with the national reformists and bourgeoisie of India and other countries.

b) The Amsterdam Trade Union International, which very modestly styles itself “the only true” trade union International, very openly and cynically defends the Geneva Labor Office. It approves of the activities of all the enumerated agencies of the bourgeoisie, for the simple reason that it itself fulfills its historical function of labor agent for capitalism, for the purpose of stabilizing and saving capitalism. Its basic policies are those of class collaboration (“industrial peace”, etc.), the stifling of all militant activities of the working class in the struggle against capitalism, the mobilization of all forces for the stabilization and perpetuation of capitalism. It fights openly against every attempt to organize the international working class; it fosters national and racial prejudices, and welcomes the division of the workers along national and continental lines. The Amsterdam International fights against the national independence movements in the colonial countries, and together with the imperialists it seeks to divert the attention of the colonial workers from the struggle against imperialism. The imperialist character of the Amsterdam International was glaringly revealed when the refusal of this organization to aid the Chinese Revolution and the revolutionary trade unions in China, and in their fraternization with Chiang-Kai-Shek and other hangmen of the Chinese workers and peasants. Of late, the Amsterdam International is striving to get a foothold in the countries of the Pacific. A very fitting answer was given to these attempts by the N.S.W. Labor Council in its open letter to the Amsterdam International (1928). The workers of China, India and Japan know too well the counter-revolutionary role of Amsterdam to fall for such bait.

c) Different in form, but essentially the same in purpose, aims and character, are such organizations as the Pan-American Federation of Labor and the proposed Asiatic Labor Conference.

The purpose and function of these organizations is simply to split and isolate the workers of one or another continent from the International labor movement, and to carry out the more easily the specific plans of this or that imperialist power.

The Pan-American Federation of Labor is the agency of American imperialism, created with the aid of the Gompers-Woll clique of the American Federation of Labor, for the purpose of making the working class of Central and South America more docile and amenable to plans of American imperialist penetration. The Latin-American Trade Union Confederation is a splendid answer to such an attempt.

The proposed Pan-Asiatic Labor Conference is sponsored by the Japanese Gompers Bunji Suzuki. In this effort he is aided directly by the same Japanese imperialist government, which aids Suzuki to smash the militant forces of the labor movement at home. The Asiatic Labor Conference is to do in Asia what the Pan-American Federation of Labor is trying to do in America. The reformist trade union leaders of India, while combatting the Pan-Pacific TU Secretariat and preventing affiliation of the Indian trade union movement with the PPTUS, readily fall for Suzuki’s Pan-Asiatic scheme.

d) A special tool of British imperialism revealed in the British Empire Labor Conferences, which are held in London from time to time under the auspices of the trade union and labor imperialists (Henderson, Purcell and Co.). The purpose of these Conferences is to utilize the idea of labor solidarity and the prestige of the British proletariat among the toiling masses of the colonies in order to perpetuate the rule of British imperialism in the colonies and dominions.

e) The Institute of Pacific Relations (Honolulu) is a more recent creation. It is purely a bourgeois outfit, under the domination of American imperialist pacifists. Its sphere of work is the Pacific. And under the mantle of “pacifism” and “friendly relations among the people of the Pacific,” an attempt is being made to drag in as many labor organizations of the Pacific countries as possible, in order to open new channels for the dissemination of the bourgeois pacifist dope. At their congresses appear “unofficial” representatives of American, British and Japanese imperialism, who propound their imperialist doctrines to the Y.M.C.A. secretaries and similar “representatives” of China, Corea, Formosa, Hawaii, Philippines, etc.

It is with regret that we learn that the Melbourne Labor Council (Australia) has financed and sent a delegate to this purely capitalist outfit, at a time when certain of the trade union leaders in Melbourne fought bitterly against the affiliation of the A.C.T.U. to the P.P.T.U.S. We warn the workers of the Pacific against this new agency of American imperialism.

f) The Spanish-American T.U. Confederation is a recently formed organization, which as yet exists only on paper, and which is an attempt on the part of the Amsterdam International to extend its influence in Latin America, where it possesses only one affiliated organization–the Argentine Confederation of Labor. In creating this organization, the Amsterdam International, working in con- junction with the Geneva Labor Office, hopes to utilize the Spanish Trade Union Federation in order to establish contact with the reformist trade unions in Latin America, and thereby to counteract the growing influence and success of the Latin-American Trade-Union Confederation formed recently at a congress held in Montevideo. The Latin-American Trade-Union Confederation has already succeeded to a large extent in rallying around it the militant trade unions of Latin America. For a characterization of this organization, it suffices to recall the fact that one of its founders is a certain Dr. Manriquez, agent of the General Electric Company of Central America and president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Venezuelan dictator Gomez.

5. The second P.P.T.U. Conference calls upon the workers of the Pacific to combat all these agencies of capitalism and imperialism and to rally to the P.P.T.U.S., the only trade union organization in the Pacific, which has and carries out a consistently militant working class program and which leads the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

The Pan-Pacific Monthly was the official organ of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS), a subdivision of the Red International of Labor Unions, or Profitern. Established first in Ha in May 1927, the PPTUS had to move its offices, and the production of the Monthly to San Francisco after the fall of the Shanghai Commune in 1927. Earl Browder was an early Secretary of tge PPTUS, having been in China during its establishment. Harrison George was the editor of the Monthly. Constituents of the PPTUC included the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Indonesian Labor Federation, the Japanese Trade Union Council, the National Minority Movement (UK Colonies), the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire (French Colonies), the Korean Workers and Peasants Federation, the Philippine Labor Congress, the National Confederation of Farm Laborers and Tenants of the Philippines, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of the Soviet Union, and the Trade Union Educational League of the U.S. With only two international conferences, the second in 1929, the PPTUS never took off as a force capable of coordinating trade union activity in the Pacific Basis, as was its charge. However, despite its short run, the Monthly is an invaluable English-language resource on a crucial period in the Communist movement in the Pacific, the beginnings of the ‘Third Period.’

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