Bolshevism Repudiated.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 March 1922, Page 4

Bolshevism Repudiated.

attitude of N.S.W. 'unions. SYDNEY, March 9. The recent decision of the New South Wales Labour Council to affiliate with the Third International Red Trade Union Congress, whose headquarters are in Moscow, has brought forth a definite protest from many of the trade unions of the State. Tiie Australian Workers’ Union lias decided to have nothing to do with the alliance, and the latest union to take exception to the Labour-Council’s decision is the Electrical Trades Union which is affiliated with the Council. The official organ of the Electrical Trades Union asks whether its members .became Bolsheviks by virtue of the Union’s connexion with the Labour Council, to whose funds a portion of each member’s union subscription is diverted.

Continuing, it adds: “It is quite unnecessary to repudiate Bolshevism on behalf of the members of the E.T.t. It has never been fairly put up to the general membership of any union, or any other Australian trade union, and we venture to assert that its sponsors will take particular care that the rank and file are not invited to record

a straight-out note on the simple issue of the acceptance or rejection of the Red Moscow International. “But u handful of delegates, elected for quite other reasons, have 'taken upon themselves, without consulting their organisations, in the name of the associated unions of New South Wales, to commit tile movement to an acceptance of something entirely foreign to their ideals and surely repugnant to the workers of this continent.. “The members of this and kindred unions have every right to profess what, ever political or economic faith is in them. If it is to l>o 'the revolution’, let us declare for the revolution. Let us do it consciously, honestly and openly and aceept the responsibility ot our tenets. But let us no longer permit the imprimatur of Australian Labour (or our little section of the movement) to be placed upon that which in our heart of hearts we reject and deplore. We are told on every hand that the vast moderate majority in the unions dc.es not stand for Bolshevism and all that the term implies. Well, where are they now? The Red International affiliation is the acid test. If the so-called moderate members swallow this, one will bo forced to the conclusion that they are politically and industrially dead, and that there is no reason why the Communists should not do as they like with Australian unionism, whose name, prestige, and resources are thus delivered into the Communists’ hands to do with as they like.”