Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina

Latin America 1938

Synopsis

In 1938 the fear of communist infiltration of the national labor movements spawned the creation of the multinational Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina, or Confederation of Latin American Workers. Led by the Mexican national labor leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano, the confederation counted on the support of union organizations from 13 Latin American nations. Lombardo and the confederation led Latin American workers on a path toward nationalism and integration among the workers, a track that was untried prior to this confederation. By 1964 the organization was defunct, as it could not overcome the nationalistic tendencies of the rank-and-file members of the international union.

Timeline

• 1922: Published this year, James Joyce's novel Ulysses and T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land will transform literature and inaugurate the era of modernism.
• 1927: American inventor Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrates a working model of the television, and Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître proposes the Bang Theory.
• 1932: In German elections, Nazis gain a 37 percent plurality of Reichstag seats, raising tensions between the far right and the far left. On a "bloody Sunday" in July, communists in Hamburg attack Nazis with guns, and a fierce battle ensues.
• 1937: Italy signs the Anti-Comintern Pact, signed by Germany and Japan the preceding year. Like the two others before it, Italy now withdraws from the League of Nations.
• 1937: Japan attacks China and annexes most of that nation's coastal areas.
• 1937: Stalin uses carefully staged show trials in Moscow to eliminate all rivals for leadership. These party purges, however, are only a small part of the death toll now being exacted in a country undergoing forced industrialization, much of it by means of slave labor.
• 1937: In the middle of an around-the-world flight, Amelia Earhart and her plane disappear somewhere in the Pacific.
• 1937: Crash of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey, kills 36 and ends the brief era when rigid airships promised to be the ocean liners of the skies.
• 1937: Pablo Picasso paints his famous Guernica mural dramatizing the Nationalist bombing of a town in Spain. Thanks to artists and intellectuals such as Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, the Loyalists are winning the battle of hearts and minds, even if they are weaker militarily, and idealistic young men flock from America to join the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade." Yet as George Orwell later reveals in Homage to Catalonia, the lines between good and evil are not clear: with its Soviet backing, the Loyalist cause serves as proxy for a totalitarianism every bit as frightening as that of the Nationalists and their German and Italian supporters.
• 1942: Axis conquests reach their height in the middle of this year. The Nazis control a vast region from Normandy to the suburbs of Stalingrad, and from the Arctic Circle to the edges of the Sahara. To the east, the Japanese "Co-Prosperity Sphere" encompasses territories from China to Burma to the East Indies, stretching deep into the western Pacific.
• 1947: The Marshall Plan is established to assist European nations in recovering from the war.
• 1952: Among the cultural landmarks of the year are the film High Noon and the book The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

Event and Its Context

By the late 1930s it was becoming increasingly clear among Latin American leaders that fascism or national socialism was achieving popularity among many workers in the international sector. In the major Latin American nations, fascism was becoming especially prevalent and threatening to union officials. Fascism threatened to replace independent unionism with a state-controlled form of labor representation. Beginning in Mexico, long-time union leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano, with the support of President Lázaro Cárdenas, attempted to create a plan to unite the different national labor groups in Latin America to struggle against the fascist tendencies within many union groups. In Mexico, Cárdenas and Lombardo initiated policies to strengthen the labor movement, each in his own way. Lombardo, an avowed Marxist, wished to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Though a Marxist, he was not an internationalist. He believed that Mexico and Latin America could not succumb to a common economic and political reality, as each nation was independent and autonomous. He understood that nationalization of private property might be a problem in a nation that had a long history of supporting the idea of private property. As leader of the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM), Lombardo in 1936 united 6,000 independent unions and 600,000 workers. The CTM served as the voice of the workers against foreign capital, especially in 1938 when Cardenas nationalized the oil industry after a prolonged workers' conflict.

In September 1938 Lombardo created the Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina (CTAL). Armed with his recent successes in Mexico, Lombardo began to communicate with unions throughout Latin America. He wished to create a regional union to ward against fascism and to counter what he saw as an increasing politicization of the workers in many nations. In other words, he believed that many national unions were allying themselves with the major political parties. This was a problem for Lombardo, who feared that such a trend would impinge on the idea of union independence. Thus he was able to garner the support of 13 national unions, including those from Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba. Clearly, this labor organization would have distinct ideas about the role of labor within the political and economic systems of Latin America. The union espoused procapitalist ideas. Although its leaders criticized the ideas of capitalism, they also supported the idea of fair capitalism in which labor would control many aspects of the work process. Moreover, in their "Declaration of Principles," the union representatives promoted three fundamental principles. First, they believed that the labor movement should have autonomy from the major political parties that were influential among their respective unions. Lombardo believed that this was key in the development of a truly nationalist, independent working-class movement. Second, they promoted the ideas of class struggle. Espousing neo-Marxist notions, the confederation believed that workers were involved in a great social struggle against the national elites and foreign capital. Moreover, they believed that unity would be the key weapon in the long run in defeating the alliance of the upper classes and foreigners. Finally, the declaration put forth the idea of an internal proletariat. Each nation contained its own domestic proletariat that served as what Lenin termed the "vanguard of the proletariat," or the leaders of the working-class struggle. Lombardo's philosophy was thus imbued in the principles of the CTAL.

The structure copied that of many communist organizations. Representatives from each nation attended the general assembly. The Central Committee consisted of a president, two vice presidents, a secretary general, and two regional secretaries (ironically, the organization divided Latin America into three regions). The representatives would meet once a year, and the general assembly would convene once every three years. The structure of the organization clearly favored the creation of a class-oriented, regional organization.

By the 1950s the CTAL had competition from several regional labor organizations. Specifically, CTAL contended with the Organización Regional Internacional Trabajadores (ORIT) and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), led by Serafino Romualdi. The CTAL lost membership to these unions in part because they favored a free trade union ideology, as opposed to the pro-class struggle ideology of the CTAL. However, the popularity of the CTAL continued as a symbol of the procapitalist and integrationist ideology of the movement, which was intensified as a result of the cold war. The cold war spawned a new anticommunist sentiment within the CTAL, forcing it to abandon its ostensible neocommunist organization to create a new organization based on that of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

In the 1950s the CTAL was instrumental in a number of foreign policy initiatives pertaining to the cold war. It was ubiquitous in the 1954 Guatemalan Revolution as well as the Cuban Revolution of 1959. However, by the early 1960s, several factors facilitated its influence in the region. First, the CTAL could not contain the nationalism of many union movements in Latin America. Nationalism proved to be a potent force that was difficult to control or deter. This was especially evident after the victory of Fidél Castro in Cuba. Castro advocated a revolutionary ideology for the working classes. Moreover, he advocated the spread of this revolutionary nationalism to other guerilla groups throughout the region. Thus, it became difficult for the CTAL to retain many of its previous supporters. Second, the influence of the cold war proved to be overwhelming to the CTAL leadership. The leadership could not contain the revolutionary zeal of many of their workers within the confines of a passive procapitalist labor union. These two factors facilitated the decline of the union. By 1964 the CTAL was, in terms of support and actions, clearly on the decline. By 1965 the CTAL would be integrated into the larger internationalist movements.

Impact

The emergence of the CTAL signified a fundamental shift in working-class consciousness in Latin America. On the one hand, Lombardo and the leadership promoted the idea of a class-conscious, internationalist bent on the ideology. The CTAL promoted an integrationist policy among the different working-class sectors in Latin America. This marked a clear departure for the labor movements in each country, which for years had supported the idea of a nationalistic, anticapitalist labor movement.

Economic and political realities in the late 1930s forced the working class to shift its approach to an integrationist philosophy. The new ideology connoted cooperation and acceptance. These ideas were difficult for a movement that had yet to attain any sort of cultural identity. Finally, the CTAL and its success provided a challenge to the hegemonic policies of many in the working-class movements, especially within the more urbanized and industrialized sectors. The CTAL was bound to fail in societies with a heavy agrarian population base and low levels of industrialization. This alienated many important groups, particularly the workers within the export sector, who felt that the CTAL was arrogant in pursuing its hegemonic policies.

The CTAL was significant in Latin American labor history in that its approach to state-labor relations influenced future labor relations, which would soon shift to integration and assimilation rather than conflict. Integration into the larger society provided many economic and social benefits to the common worker. In the long run, the CTAL radically transformed the nature of the Latin American working class.

Key Players

Lombardo Toledano, Vicente (1894-1968): Mexican labor leader of the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM), Lombardo formed the Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina (CTAL) in 1938 to counter an increasing tendency toward fascism in the regional movements.

Cárdenas, Lázaro (1895-1970): President of Mexico in 1938 at the time of the formation of CTAL, Cárdenas was instrumental in influencing Lombardo to pursue free trade unionism.

See also: American Federation of Labor; Guatemalan Coup Orchestrated by CIA; International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

Bibliography

Books

Kofas, Jon F. The Struggle for Legitimacy: Latin American Labor and the United States. Tempe, AZ: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1992.

Lombardo Toledano, Vicente. La Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina ha Concluído su Misión Histórica. México: Editorial Popular, 1964.

Quintanilla, Obregón Lourdes. Lombardismo y Sindicatos en América Latina. México: Distribuciónes Fontamara: Ediciónes Nueva Sociologéa, 1982.

—Jaime Ramon Olivares