The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-07-31


sion of the boundaries of their re-
spective countries. The capitalists
had succeeded by means of their
schools, churches, press, ETC., to in
still into the minds of the workers,
love of country, national pride, and
the desire to become bigger and more
powerful than other countries. All
these ideas found their expression in
the very first days Of the war. The
labor organizations, trade unions, ap-
peared to be nothing else than an
organic part of the capitalist state
This became apparent only with the
beginning of the war.
1t is true that even before the war
some of us had begun to see the
danger of reformism. But nobody
foresaw that these reformistic lead
ers would bring the working class
to the position to which they brought
them. They began with the idea of
national defense, maintaining at the
same time that they will not sur
render the class positions of the
workers. But these were only words.
Right at the outbreak of the war
the labor bureaucracy transformed
the trade unions into war machines
of the capitalist state, the trade I'M
ion leaders serving in many instanc-
es in the capacity of mobilizing
agents.
The history of the four years of
war is the history of continuous be-
elementary interests of the workers.
Once the labor bureaucracy accepted
the. point of view of national defense,
it later on was compelled to exer-
else the functions of the police with
regard to the membership of their
own unions. Later on they had to
surrender everything the workers
had won thru the years Of hard strug-
gle. They had to suppress every in
dication of dissatisfaction among the
masses, and in doing so the labor
bureaucrats were working hand in
hand with the capitalist police. The
labor bureaucrats knew only one slo-
gan: "War to the end, at any cost"
Our great slogan: "Proletarians Of
all countries, unitel" they substitute
ed with another slogan: "Proletari-
ans of all countries, kill each other!"
For the sake of the interests of the
heavy industrialists and large bank
ers, the labor bureaucracy had
brought corruption and destruction
into the labor movement. This his
tory of the role Of the labor bureau
cracy in the last war. has not been
written yet When this is done it
will be seen, every official leader of
the trade union movement considered
it an honor to be of assistance to
his bourgeoisie in the last war.
Due to the activities Of the labor
bureaucrats, the nationalistic preju-
dices of the working masses had been
raised to the highest point. These
gentlemen had been preaching the
widest nationalism and Imperialism,
thus destroying the foundations of
The international solidarity of the
working masses. The logical conse-
quence of these activities was the
total collapse of the International.
Thus have the labor bureaucrats full
filed their patriotic" duty. They
have shown that their conception of
trade unionism is to make the labor
organizations part and parcel of the
capitalist state, to subordinate the
interests of labor to the interests of
capital.
The war came to an emu. And the
enemies of yesterday began talking
about the restoration Of the Interna-
tional. But what kind of an Inter
national can these fellows create?
What sort of an international labor
organization can result out of the ef-
forts of these "Fatherland patriots"
these nationalist, for whom the
bourgeoisie are more important than
the interests of the working class.
They may succeed in giving us the
appearance of an International, its
form, but never its real substance.
They may succeed in bringing togeth-
er a number of national organizations
and call it an international" but it
will be nothing of the sort.
That, by the way, is what they ac-
tually did. The exhausted and be-
trayed masses had begun to feel
again the need for an international
working-class organization. These
masses have compelled their nation
alistic leaders to attempt to re-estab-
lish the international relations of the
working class. But instead Of bread,
the labor bureaucracy has given the
masses a stone. Instead Of an Inter
national that can really unite the
working class, leading them in strug-
gle against capitalism, the labor bu-
reaucracy has given us an appendix
to the bourgeois League of Nations,
and this they call trade union In
ternational."
This is how the. Amsterdam Inter
national came into being. 1t is the
same International which is being led
by the social patriots Of all countries,
by the same people who are spattered