How the CIO Tried to Prevent the Cold War
In the 1940s, Soviet and US labor unionists arranged for exchanges between their countries to promote goodwill and help prevent a dangerous rivalry. The largely forgotten effort serves as a reminder of how the Cold War might have been averted.
New York CIO leaders and a delegation of ten Soviet trade unionists sit on the stage at Carnegie Hall on August 6, 1945. Eleanor Roosevelt is seated in the front row between Sidney Hillman and Vasily Kuznetsov. (Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland Libraries Special Collections)
On the night of August 6, 1945, as the evening papers hit the streets with breaking news of the US military using a “terrible new weapon” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima earlier that day, about 2,500 working-class New Yorkers gathered at Carnegie Hall to learn about organized labor’s role in fostering world peace.
Hosted by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) — the dynamic labor federation that had successfully unionized millions of workers over the previous decade — the event’s honored guests were ten Soviet trade unionists who were touring the United States.
“We see in the unity of the international labor movement the guarantee of . . . achieving success in the struggle against the dark forces of fascism unleashed by the Second World War,” Vasily Kuznetsov, head of the Soviet delegation and chair of the USSR’s All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (AUCCTU), told the crowd. “In this unity we see the guarantee for a peaceful life in the future, free from fear of aggression.”
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