Abstract Since the 1920s, the workers’ movement has been crucial in linking international communism with colonial liberation. From the 1950s, communist trade unions and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) played a key role in this process. The WFTU forged ties with Afro-Asian unions to challenge Western powers with an anti-imperialist platform. Decolonization opened new opportunities for European workers in their anti-capitalist struggle, prompting unions such as the French Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and Italian Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) to build relationships with unions in newly independent African nations. Their focus was mainly on North and West Africa, where socialist movements emerged during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The CGT and the CGIL established solid links with trade unions in Guinea, Mali, and Ghana. Their views, shaped by their affiliations with the French and Italian communist parties, were not consistently aligned. The CGT maintained a Eurocentric approach to African socialism, while the CGIL, aligned with the PCI, supported a “staged” revolution in Africa, where the working class did not occupy a position of leadership. The CGIL and PCI emphasized the role of peasants and workers in building socialism through a “social revolution” that could strengthen the socialist bloc. These differences created tensions in African trade unions and the FSM, leading to the marginalization of the CGIL’s approach. Nonetheless, Italian unionists gained support from African unions and joined the CGT in mediating for workers in Guinea, Mali, and Ghana.
Gabriele Siracusano (Fri,) studied this question.