IWA–AIT

Not to be confused with International Workingmen's Association or IWA (disambiguation).

IWA/AIT

International Workers' Association
Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores
Founded	December 1922 (1922-12)
Headquarters	C/Joaquim Costa 34 baixos Barcelona, Spain
Location	International
Affiliations	Anarcho-syndicalism
Website	www.iwa-ait.org

The International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT) is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives.

It aims to create unions capable of fighting for the economic and political interests of the working class and eventually, to directly abolish capitalism and the state through "the establishment of economic communities and administrative organs run by the workers."

At its peak the International represented millions of people worldwide. Its member unions played a central role in the social conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s. However the International was formed as many countries were entering periods of extreme repression, and many of the largest IWA unions were shattered during that period.

Ideology

Further information: Anarcho-syndicalism

The IWA's Principles, Goals and Statutes state its role as being: "To carry on the day-to-day revolutionary struggle for the economic, social and intellectual advancement of the working class within the limits of present-day society, and to educate the masses so that they will be ready to independently manage the processes of production and distribution when the time comes to take possession of all the elements of social life."

The IWA explicitly rejects centralism, political parties, parliamentarism and statism, including the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as offering the means to carry out such change, drawing heavily on anarchist critiques written both before and after the Russian revolution, most famously Mikhail Bakunin's suggestion that: "If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself."

It also rejects the concept of economic determinism from some Marxists that liberation would come about; "by virtue of some inevitable fatalism of rigid natural laws which admit no deviation; its realization will depend above all on the conscious will and the use of revolutionary action of the workers and will be determined by them."

Instead emphasis is placed on the organization of workers as the agents of social change through their ability to take direct action:

Revolutionary unionism asserts itself to be a supporter of the method of direct action, and aids and encourages all struggles that are not in contradiction to its own goals. Its methods of struggle are: strikes, boycotts, sabotage, etc. Direct action reaches its deepest expression in the general strike, which should also be, from the point of view of revolutionary unionism, the prelude to the social revolution.

...

Only in the economic and revolutionary organisations of the working class are there forces capable of bringing about its liberation and the necessary creative energy for the reorganisation of society on the basis of libertarian communism.

— Statutes of the IWA

Policies

From an early stage, the IWA has taken an anti-militarist stance, reflecting the overwhelming anarchist attitude since the First World War that the working class should not engage with the power struggles between ruling classes - and certainly should not die for them. It included a commitment to anti-militarism in its core principles and in 1926 it founded an International Anti-Militarist Coalition to promote disarmament and gather information on war production.

The IWA also states that syndicalists recognize violence as an acceptable defense against violence of the ruling classes, to be occur through the formation of a democratic popular militia rather than through a traditional military hierarchy. This has been posited as an alternative to the dictatorship of the proletariat model.

Sample flowchart of the relationship of an individual member of the Solidarity Federation to their national body and to the IWA, circa 2009.

History

Bakunin speaking to members of the IWMA at the congress in Basel, 1869.

First International and revolutionary syndicalism (1864–1917)

The First International (International Workingmen's Association; IWMA)aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and Labor union that were based on the working class and class struggle.

The earlier International however was not able to withstand the differences between anarchist and Marxist currents, with the anarchists largely withdrawing after the Hague Congress of 1872 which saw the expulsion of leading libertarians Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume over their criticism of Karl Marx's party-political approach to social change.

This split prompted several attempts to start specifically anarchist Internationals, notably the Anarchist St. Imier International (1872-1881) and the Black International (1881–87). However heavy repression in France of the Paris Commune, as well as in Spain and Italy, alongside the rise of propaganda of the deed within the anarchist movement and a dominant strand of social-democracy on the wider left wing in Europe, meant that serious moves to establish an anarcho-syndicalist international would not begin until the early 20th century.

After the end of the war however, with the workers' movement resurgent following the October Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War, what was to become the modern IWA was formed, billing itself as the "true heir" of the original international.

Rejection of Bolshevism and founding of the IWA (1918–1922)

The success of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1918 resulted in a wave of syndicalist successes worldwide, including the struggle of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the USA alongside the creation of mass anarchist unions across Latin America and huge syndicalist-led strikes in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France, where it was noted that "neutral (economic, but not political) syndicalism had been swept away."

For many in this new revolutionary wave, Russia seemed to offer a successful alternative to social democratic reformism, so when in 1919 the Bolshevik Party issued an appeal for all workers to join it in building a new Red International it was met with great interest. Almost all of the syndicalist unions attended the 1920 congress of the Bolsheviks’ international of communists, the Comintern, which unions in France and Italy joined immediately. In contrast, attempts to organize a conference of anarchists in February 1919 in Copenhagen had seen only the Scandinavians able to attend.

Skepticism was initially expressed by Germany's influential Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) towards the Bolsheviks' concept of an international of trade unions, known as the Profintern. Such sentiments grew significantly as delegates from several countries gained access to Bolshevik Russia. Augustine Souchy of FAUD scathingly criticised the failings of "dictatorial state socialism," as concerns rose over proposals from the Bolsheviks that all unions should submit themselves to the Communist Party's leadership and reports began to arrive documenting the imprisonment of anarchists and socialists by the Bolsheviks.

The final formation of this new international, then known as the International Workingmen's Association, took place at an illegal conference in Berlin in December 1922, marking an irrevocable break between the international syndicalist movement and the Bolsheviks.

Signatories to the founding statement of the International Workingmen's Association included groups from around the world. The single largest anarcho-syndicalist union at the time, the CNT in Spain, was unable to attend when their delegates were arrested on the way to the conference, though they did join the following year, bringing 600,000 members into the international. Despite the CNT's absence, the international represented well over 1 million workers at its inauguration:

• The Italian Syndicalist Union (USI): 500,000 members
• The Regional Federation of Argentine Workers (FORA): 200,000
• The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) in Portugal: 150,000
• The Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD): 120,000
• The Committee for the Defense of Revolutionary Syndicalism in France: 100,000
• The Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC): 32,000
• The General Confederation of Workers (CGT) in Mexico: 30,000
• The National Labor Secretariat (NAS) in the Netherlands: 22,500
• The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Chile: 20,000
• The Norwegian Syndicalist Federation (NSF) in Norway: 20,000
• The Union for Syndicalist Propaganda in Denmark: 600

The biggest syndicalist union in the US, the IWW, considered joining but eventually ruled out affiliation in 1936, citing the IWA's policies on religious and political affiliation.

Decline and repression (1923–1939)

In Argentina, the FORA had already begun a process of decline by the time it joined the IWA, having split in 1915 into pro and anti-Bolshevik factions. From 1922, the anarchist movement there lost most of its membership, exacerbated by further splits, most notably around the Severino Di Giovanni affair. It was crushed by General Uriburu's military coup in 1930.

Germany's FAUD struggled throughout the late 1920s and early 30s as the brownshirts took control of the streets. Its last national congress in Erfurt in March 1932 saw the union attempt to form an underground bureau to combat Hitler's National Socialists, a measure which was never put into practice as mass arrests decimated the conspirators' ranks. The editor of FAUD organ Der Syndikalist, Gerhard Wartenberg, was later killed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Karl Windhoff, delegate to the IWA Madrid congress of 1931, was driven out of his mind and also died in a death camp. Mass trials of FAUD members were also held in Wuppertal and Rhenanie; many of those convicted did not survive the death camps.

Wartime CNT propaganda.

Italian IWA union the USI, which had claimed a membership of up to 600,000 people in 1922, was warning even at that time of murders and repression from Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. It had been driven underground by 1924 and although it was still able to lead significant strikes by miners, metalworkers and marble workers, Mussolini's ascent to power in 1925 sealed its fate. By 1927 its leading activists had been arrested or exiled.

Portugal's CGT was driven underground after an unsuccessful attempt to break the newly installed President of Portugal, Gomes da Costa, with a general strike in 1927 which led to nearly 100 deaths. It survived underground with 15–20,000 members until January 1934, when it called a general revolutionary strike, which failed, against plans to replace trade unions with corporations. It was able to continue in a much reduced state until World War II, but was effectively finished as a fighting union. Massive government repression repeated such defeats around the world, as anarcho-syndicalist unions were destroyed in Peru, Brazil, Columbia, Japan, Cuba, Bulgaria, Paraguay and Bolivia. By the end of the 1930s legal anarcho-syndicalist trade unions existed only in Chile, Bolivia, Sweden and Uruguay.

At the tenth congress in 1958, the SAC's response to its pressures led it into a clash with the rest of the international. It withdrew from the IWA following its failure to amend the body's statutes to allow it to stand in municipal elections and amid concerns over its integration with the state over distribution of unemployment benefits.

In 1976, at the 15th congress, the IWA had only five member groups, two of which (the Spanish and Bulgarian members) were still operating in exile (though following Franco's death in 1975, the CNT was already approaching a membership of 200,000).

In 2018, former IWA members met with other groups in Parma, Italy, to establish a new international organization, the International Confederation of Labor (Confederación Internacional del Trabajo), otherwise known as ICL-CIT. Affiliated organizations include CNT (Spain), USI–CIT (Italy), FAU (Germany), the North American Regional Administration of the IWW, ESE (Greece), FORA (Argentina) and IP (Poland).

Other anarchist internationals and international networks

• Anarchist St. Imier International (1872–1877)
• International Working People's Association (1881–1887)
• International of Anarchist Federations (1968–)

External links

• Official website
• Video of the IWA Congress in Madrid 1931