labor. In Germany and other countries, by agreement with the trade unions was created an indefinite working day. In short, the trade unions during the war period were the basis of the struggle. They took an active ideological and political and, more than that, a military, participation in the international slaughter.
This division into military coalitions brought about the attempt in 1916 by the trade unionists of the Allies to organize their own conference in Leeds, England, and at that conference to create the new Trade Union International of the Allies. Every time that the representatives of the neutral countries, as for instance the Swiss, Norwegian, Holland, Sweden, tried to organize an international conference in order to bring together the members of one and the same trade union international, the representatives of "democracy" and "civilization," that is, of France, England and other countries, bitterly refused to sit at one table with representatives from the Countries of the Central Powers.
Why did they refuse? Why did they not want to meet the representatives from the German trade unions in order to talk over the methods and forms of stopping the slaughter?—Because they were tied up with their bourgeoisie and a meeting between the allies of the bourgeoisie of the Allied powers and the allies of the bourgeoisie of the Central Powers would be a meeting between the two bourgeoisie themselves. And, as the war had been conducted for the destruction of the countries, for the economic destruction, for the economic exhaustion, it is natural that neither the French nor the British or the American unions, could agree to meet the Germans. The Germans expressed their willingness to meet, but the French and Belgians considered themselves citizens of attacked countries which were fighting for "Right" and "civilization."
The trade union movement was broken up into different coalitions along the lines of diplomacy, which is, perhaps, the lowest form of disgrace, the most extreme point reached by the trade union movement in its disintegration.
The Reflection of Allied Victory on the World Trade Union Movement
The war, which ended in a victory of "democracy" over "barbarism," resulted in the famous Versailles, Trianon, and Sevres Treaties, which brought "peace to humanity." It would be a mistake to consider the victory only as a victory of one bourgeoisie over the other. It was not only of the bourgeoisie of the Allied countries over the German and Austrian people,—it was something more than that—it was the victory of the trade unions of the allied countries over the trade unions of Germany and Austria, It was a victory of one part of the workers over the other. The dominant position which the German trade unions occupied before the war, was destroyed by the victory of the Allies.
