Tasks of the Trade Union Movement in Latin America

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In Mexico from September 6 to 8 there was a congress of trade union representatives from several Latin American countries resulting in the founding of a so-called "Confederation of Latin American Workers." We, the undersigned, consider it our duty to declare to the workers of Latin America and the whole world that this congress, prepared behind the backs of the masses, was stacked one-sidedly for purposes that have nothing to do with the interests of the Latin American proletariat, but which, on the contrary, are fundamentally hostile to these interests. The "confederation" created at this congress represents not the unification of the organized proletariat of our continent but a political faction closely linked with the Moscow oligarchy.

From Mexico alone the following were neither invited nor admitted to this congress: the Casa del Pueblo, the CROM, and the CGT. Comrade Mateo Fossa, who had arrived from Buenos Aires with a mandate from twenty-four independent Argentine trade unions, was not admitted to the congress simply because he was an opponent of Stalinism. We could point to trade union organizations in every Latin American country which from the outset were deliberately kept out of the pre-congress preparations, so as not to disrupt its political homogeneity, i.e., its total subordination to Stalinism.

The majority of the delegates at the trade union congress also took part in the congress against war and fascism, where they had the opportunity to fully disclose their political silhouette. They all voted for hollow resolutions on the struggle against fascism but decisively repudiated (except for the representatives from Puerto Rico and Peru) the struggle against imperialism. This policy fully characterizes the Moscow bureaucracy, which in view of the threats from Hitler is seeking the trust and friendship of the imperialist democracies: France, Great Britain, and the United States. The working masses of Latin America, who see fascism as their mortal enemy, cannot, however, for even an instant give up the irreconcilable revolutionary struggle against imperialism, even an imperialism concealed behind a mask of democracy. That is why the proletariat and the peoples of Latin America can have no aims in common with the Stalinist bureaucracy! We can never forget or close our eyes to the fact that in the name of friendship with the French and English bourgeoisie, the Stalinist bureaucracy strangled the revolutionary movement of the Spanish workers and peasants!

"Democratic" imperialism, which is infinitely stronger in Latin America than fascist imperialism, endeavors – and not without success – by means of bribery, doles, and privileges to establish its own political agents in our countries, not only within the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois bureaucracy, and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, but in the upper strata of the working class as well. Such corrupted elements from the labor bureaucracy or labor "aristocracy" often entertain not proletarian or revolutionary but slavish and servile feelings toward their imperialist protectors. The agents of the Kremlin oligarchy exploit these feelings in order to reconcile the Latin American proletariat with the "democratic" slaveholders.

To this must be added the fact that in Mexico where the unions, unfortunately, are directly dependent on the state, posts in the union bureaucracy are frequently filled from the ranks of the bourgeois intelligentsia, attorneys, engineers, etc.–by people who have nothing in common with the working class and who seek only to use the trade union organizations in the interests of their own personal material well-being or their political careers. In an effort to conceal their crudely egotistical politics from the workers, these bourgeois careerists usually come forward as "antifascists" and "friends of the USSR," while in reality they are agents of Anglo-Saxon imperialism.

So as to keep the trade unions in the hands of their faction, they ferociously trample on workers' democracy and stifle any voice of criticism, acting as outright gangsters toward organizations that fight for the revolutionary independence of the proletariat from the bourgeois state and from foreign imperialism. By thus splitting the trade union movement and greatly embittering the struggle among its various tendencies, Stalin's agents weaken the proletariat, corrupt it, undermine democracy in our country, and in fact clear the road for fascism. The Mexican attorney Lombardo Toledano, elected as secretary of the Latin American Federation which he himself organized, is the leader most responsible for this criminal policy.

We, the undersigned, are ardent and devoted supporters of the unification of the Latin American proletariat as well as of the closest possible ties between it and the proletariat of the United States of North America. But this task, as is evident from what has been stated, still remains totally undone. The factional political organization that was formed in September is not an aid but an obstacle on the road to its completion.

We are firmly convinced that the genuine unification of the Latin American proletariat can and will be achieved on the basis of the principles listed below:

1. The full independence of the trade union movement from

its own bourgeois government as well as from foreign imperial-

ism, fascist or "democratic";

2. A revolutionary class-struggle program;

3. Purging the trade union movement of petty-bourgeois careerists who are alien to the working class;

4. The unification in every country of all working class unions on the basis of workers' democracy, i.e., that struggle of ideas within the union conducted freely and in a fraternal way, with the minority strictly submitting to the majority and with iron discipline in action;

5. The honest preparation of a Latin American congress of trade unions with the active participation of the mass of the workers themselves, that is, with an unrestricted and serious discussion of the tasks of the Latin American proletariat and its methods of struggle.

Our proletariat must step out in solid ranks into the arena of history in order to take the fate of Latin America into its hands and make its future secure. The unified proletariat will attract to its side the tens of millions of Indo-American peasants, eliminate the hostile borders dividing us, and unite the two dozen republics and colonial possessions under the banner of a Workers' and Peasants' United States of Latin America.

We present this program for the discussion of all workers' organizations of our continent. Revolutionary workers of Latin America, you have the floor!