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{
    "localId": "225248648",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 21-48, The Significance of the World Federation of Trade Unions in the Present Power Conflict",
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    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 21-48, The Significance of the World Federation of Trade Unions in the Present Power Conflict",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/225248648",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 14,
            "logicalDate": "1948-06-14",
            "month": 6,
            "year": 1948
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{
    "seq": 7,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "CONFIDENTIAL\nGiuseppe Di Vittorio (Italy) Were the WFTU to be dissolved tomorrow, the Soviet\npower to dictate to these unions would be unchanged.\nThe influence of Soviet Russia in the WFTU, as distinct from its direct control of\nCommunist trade unions within the national organizations, has been covertly exercised\nthrough the WFTU General Secretary, Louis Saillant. From his headquarters\nin Paris, Saillant, who is also a secretary of the French General Confederation\nof Labor (CGT), has disseminated WFTU resolutions, sent out WFTU investigating com-\nmissions, and headed WFTU delegations attending international conferences (includ-\ning UN meetings). While Saillant constitutionally possessed these broad powers, he\nconsistently abused them by exercising his authority in a manner calculated to pro-\nmote Soviet objectives. Moreover, in several matters of vital importance to the West-\nern national affiliates, he took unilateral action without consultation. Under his\ndirection the Secretariat has consistently given greater emphasis to WFTU political\nand propagandist activity than to measures aiming at the economic and social im-\nprovement of union members.\nThe WFTU, in fact, serves the USSR principally as a sounding board for its propa-\nganda. Through this medium the USSR can project its political and social aims west\nof the Iron Curtain and agitate issues embarrassing to the Western powers. The\nWFTU in the eyes of the working class symbolizes the striving of the workers towards\n\"solidarity\" and thus provides an unexcelled means for the dissemination of Com-\nmunist ideology. In the propaganda struggle between the Western-oriented and Com-\nmunist elements in the WFTU, the Communists have shown themselves more effective\nand adroit. They packed the permanent WFTU Secretariat at the outset with followers\nof\nSaillant. They selected for agitation political issues which had a surface appeal\nto a wide non-Communist group. WFTU resolutions, especially those drafted in the\nearlier period, included repeated professions of faith in \"democracy\" and protests\nagainst the \"remnants of Fascism,\" and this ambiguous vocabulary often proved decep-\ntive to the Western trade unionists who were frequently unaware of the pro-Soviet\norientation of resolutions which they endorsed.\nDuring the first two years of the WFTU's existence the USSR exercised its working\ncontrol in the federation with moderation in an evident desire to avoid alienating the\nTUC and the CIO. None of the federation's political resolutions, however, were per-\nmitted to reflect unfavorably on the USSR. In contrast, many resolutions were\nsharply critical of US and British actions, particularly those dealing with colonies,\nracial discrimination in the Canal Zone and South Africa, and labor conditions in\nPuerto Rico.\nThe WFTU has been an extremely effective agency, from the Soviet standpoint, in\ncarrying propaganda to the populations of colonial and dependent areas. The colonial\npeoples have furnished a fertile field for Communist labor organizers because of the\nprevalent illiteracy and the widespread exploitation of native labor. As a consequence\nof these factors, the WFTU Secretariat has influenced colonial peoples with its propa-\nganda to a far greater degree than it has the more literate workers in industrially de-\nveloped areas. It is also becoming evident that WFTU investigating commissions, in\n5\nCONFIDENTIA"
}