HISTORY OF THE I.W.A.

International communism and social democracy highlight the

formation of woodworkers’ unions in post World War | period

LUMBER
WORKER

Article by Clay Perry

PART Il

The 0.B.U., the R.1.L.U.,
the L.W.I.U., Rosvall
and Voutilainen

and Fraser Mills

jhe years immediately after World
| War one were exciting for Canadi-

an forest industry workers. Labour
| shortages caused by the war
| prompted a great wave of organiz-
| ing in basic industries throughout
| North America. In Russia, the reign
1 of the Czars was finally overturned,
and what promised to be, and unionists gener-
ally agreed was, the first workers’ govern-
ment,” was established.

On the west coast, in 1917, the A.F. of L.’s
“Shingle Weavers” led a strike of 800 in New
Westminster, Pt. Moody and Eburne. The
Steam and Operating Engineers led a strike of
1,000 millworkers in 1918, and in March of
1919, the shingle workers conducted an even
larger strike.

In June of 1919, millworkers on the coast
went out once again, in sympathy with the
Winnipeg General Strikers. It seems clear
looking back now that there was a failure of
organization, because although Winch criti-
cized the movement for “not calling on the
loggers,” their strikes occurred in the fall of
that year, out of sync with the millworkers.”

There was a sense shared by left and right
that the next few years, or perhaps even the
next few months, would be decisive. Would
Western capitalism continue to dominate, or
would revolution spread from its base in Rus-
sia to engulf first western Europe, then
Britain, and, finally North America?

Lenin and the Bolsheviks he led, then con-
vinced that the Russian revolution could not
long survive in isolation, worked feverishly to
extend it. Germany looked especially promis-
ing; hungry angry and disillusioned troops
straggled back to their homes, and, largely un-
der the leadership of Rosa Luxemburg and
Kar] Leibenect’s “Sparticists,” came very close
to seizing power.

There was no doubt in Lenin’s mind about
the Sparticists’ failure. Revolution needs iron
discipline, unquestioned following of ‘central
command’. (Canadian Communists derived a
similar lesson from the Winnipeg General
strike “failure.”) Unions had a crucial role, but
they were to be under the firm command of
the party. Revolutionaries had to practice
“war communism,” a ruthless, centrally-com-
manded war that would be swift and decisive.
The western powers, including Churchill, saw
things much the same way, and demanded an
equally ruthless response.

Ernie Winch, leader of the B.C. Loggers’
Union, was an avowed Marxist, but he dis-
agreed on the crucial issue of a single, world-
wide all-powerful leadership. The syndicalist
Industrial Workers of the World (1.W.W.) and
its off-shoot, the One Big Union (O.B.U.), was
bitterly opposed to it, in part because the Red
International of Labour Unions (R.1.L.U.),
which was the trade union section of the
Communist party, to be directed by the
“Profintern,” decided that revolutionary

unions in “America”
(which - included
Canada) should dis-
band, join the main-
stream A.F. of L. affil-
iates, and “bore from
within.”

Lenin said: “It is
necessary to be able
to withstand all this
Creformism”, “busi-
ness unionism”,
etc.), to agree to any
and all sacrifice, and
even - if need be - to
resort to all sorts of
stratagems, manoeu-
vres and illegal
methods, to evasion
and subterfuges, in
order to penetrate the
trade unions, to re-
main in them, and
to carry on commu-
nist work in them at
all cost.”

Although most
leading Canadian
Communists, includ-
ing Joe Knight, who
was to represent the
O.B.U. at “The Third
International” had un-
til that time opposed
the participation of
Canadian workers in
the A.F. of L., that

Vol. 1—No. 1

Official Organ of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada

Se]

1932

For a United Front of Employed and Unemployed
Based on Struggle

—=——7 oo

—<— CONTENTS —

of Building a Real

Shingle Mill Workers of B.C.
ry Paper

Show Fight

At the 9th Convention Immediate Tasks Confronting the
Half of the Jubs Are Gone Districts

Forever Hard Luck Stories

Resolution on the Situation and
Tasks of the Lumber Workers
Industrial Union of Canada

LW
Defend Your Orga

Swedish Workers Against Reform-
ist T.U. Leaders Betrayal

~ Shows Mi Record. A Labor Day or a Funeral

ers Prosperity!

Who For?

meen Me UOMO

policy was affirmed
at the July, 1921
Moscow conference

LUMBER AND SAWMILL WORKERS ORGANIZE

of the R.I.L.U., at
which the following
decisions were en-
dorsed: “Thus the
task incumbent upon us (the R.ILL.U.) in
America is the organization of the masses
not on the principles of an ideal unionism
but by means of an active participation in
their struggle by directing their strikes; by
giving practical advise; by organizing the
moral and material support of the class
struggle.

It is necessary to cure the best revolution-
ists of America of the spirit of the “Industri-
al Workers of the World” and of the One Big
Union (therefore) the members of the I.W.W.
should join their respective (A.F' .of L. and,
in Canada, affiliates of the Trades & Labour
Congress) trade unions and spread their
propaganda. The longer they keep themselves
aloof from the American Federation of
Labour the greater will be the sufferings and
the harder will be the advancement of the
unorganized workers there.”

All of this, and a good deal more was codi-
fied, made virtually into communist law, in a
document entitled “Twenty One Conditions of
Admission to the Communist or Third Inter-
national.”

Disputes between the various Canadian fac-
tions heated up. At the January, 1920 Conven-
tion of the L.W.LU., a referendum ballot was
held, proposing a new name, “The Lumber
and Camp Workers Industrial Union of the
One Big Union,” passing 276 votes to 107, and
in another resolution they claimed the
L.W.L.U. “shall have no affiliation or connec-
tion with the Industrial Workers of the
World.”

Another division was created by O.B.U.
leaders, concerned about the Loggers’ en-
croachment into camps. In the fall of 1920, at

e The first issue of the Lumber Worker, published in 1932, was seen as a “revo-
lutionary” publication by the L.W.L.U.

the semi-annual convention of the O.B.U. held
at Pt. Arthur, Ontario, the credentials com-
mittee ruled against seating the loggers’ dele-
gate, and, later, moved that members’ dues
had to go directly to O.B.U. headquarters. As
Hak says “the L.W.I.U. Executive Committee
would have no power, no money, and no rea-
son for existence...”. Nine of the ten loggers
delegates, representing the O.B.U.’s largest
constituent organization and largest source of
funding, stomped out of the convention, and
at their own January, 1921, meeting, formally
withdrew from the O.B.U.

lhe most important dividing line was

that between communists and social

democrats. For communists, or at

least for the Bolshevik section, the ne-
cessity for a single, uncontested leading polit-
ical party to take charge of “the revolution”
was a first principle, and had been at least
since Lenin had written “we shall show that
the working class party alone can be the
leader of the revolutionary movement of the
masses; we shall not give our support to any
other revolutionary or opposition party or
group, but we shall compel them to support
us...”

First and foremost, that meant a bitter
struggle to eliminate social democrats. “Save
the big guns for the near enemy!” said Lenin
In Canada, when J.S. Woodsworth appeared
at the Logger’s hall to teach a course in “Val-
ue, Price and Profit,” he was interrupted by
someone who demanded to know whether he
accepted Marx's definition and analysis there-

Continued on next page

—_— nl

16/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1995

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