This introduction reconceptualizes the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as a pivotal arena of Cold War labour internationalism by narrating its history through the experiences of actors outside the traditional metropolitan core. It offers the first systematic synthesis of a dispersed body of scholarship on the WFTU, integrating work on communist internationalism, decolonization, gender, and trade union education into a coherent analytical framework. Methodologically, the introduction breaks new ground by adopting an actor-centred approach that foregrounds “subaltern labour leaders” from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and traces their trajectories across multiple scales, from workplaces and national centres to WFTU congresses and UN forums. Reconstructing key moments in the federation’s history, it highlights a polyphony of national internationalisms within a shared communist project and shows how struggles over gender, empire, and sovereignty intersected with, but were not reducible to, East–West bloc politics. In doing so, the introduction advances a more nuanced understanding of the WFTU as both an instrument of state socialism and a generative space for alternative visions of global labour solidarity.

From its founding in 1938 onwards, the activities of the Confederation of Latin American Workers (CTAL) were rooted in anti-imperialist struggle. Initially, this was in response to the plundering of Latin America in the service of US economic interests, while later anti-imperialist efforts were directed against the hegemony that Europe and the US exerted over markets and territories in Africa and Asia. In the immediate post-war period, the CTAL engaged in a markedly anti-imperialist discourse. The confederation established solidarity alliances and trade union campaigns committed to supporting causes in distant, culturally diverse places, because they were considered part of the same history of dependence, neglect, and exclusion that had to be overcome to build autonomous nations. This article covers meetings between trade union leaders from different continents, as documented in letters, magazine and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, and the records of workers’ organizations. Working through the CTAL and the World Federation of Trade Unions, these individuals disseminated their beliefs and sought to achieve widespread mobilization for their union and political struggles, with the goal of eradicating imperialism from the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

This article examines how the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) functioned as a contested arena where divergent projects of labour internationalism and decolonization intersected in the mid-twentieth century, with a focus on the Indian communist trade union leader Shripad Amrit Dange (1899–1991). Drawing on the concept of subaltern internationalism, it analyses how Dange, as WFTU vice-president and executive committee member, sought to appropriate the federation as a vehicle for anti-colonial projects, and how his scope for action was shaped by colonial and post-colonial repression, structural inequalities, and Cold War ideological conflicts. Using materials from the WFTU and All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) collections, along with contemporary journals, the article reconstructs three key phases: the 1945 founding conferences; the contested development of a WFTU Colonial Department and a Pan-Asian initiative; and the post-1949 period, when the federation reoriented itself towards a more explicit anti-colonial programme after the split. Methodologically, the article employs a biographical lens to trace how Dange’s reflections on colonial capitalism and the social composition of the Indian working class fed into debates on decolonization within the WFTU, challenged dominant Western notions, and articulated a vision of post-colonial labour internationalism that linked workplace struggles “from below” to institutional measures “from above”, culminating in his interventions at the fourth world congress in Leipzig in 1957.

This article traces the union career of Abdoulaye Diallo, born in French West Africa in 1917, from the united World Federation of Trade Unions’ (WFTU) 1947 Pan-African Trade Union Conference in Dakar to the founding of the Union Générale des Travailleurs d’Afrique Noire (UGTAN) in 1957. The Dakar conference was a turning point: African delegates, including Diallo, compelled the WFTU to address colonial labour exploitation, thereby unsettling representatives of empire. Following the 1949 split, the WFTU increasingly amplified and promoted leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and Diallo was appointed vice-president. Our analysis of Diallo’s publications reveals his fierce anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. It also shows how, following the split, the WFTU provided a platform for Africans to express their anti-colonial views to a wider audience through newspapers and WFTU publications. His interventions at meetings of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in the early 1950s exposed forced labour and repression to representatives of international organizations while offering unwavering, uncritical support for the Soviet Union. At the WFTU’s Third World Congress in Vienna (1953), Diallo stood out as the leading African delegate, urging workers to organize for liberation. Regionally, he mobilized Francophone West African workers against wage discrimination and colonial coercion, navigating tensions between communist internationalism and emerging nationalist priorities. This study reimagines the WFTU as an anti-colonial arena, shaped by African agency during the early Cold War period.

In 1949, the British Labour Party had been in power for four years. Domestically, the British government faced post-war reconstruction; internationally, its imperial grip was loosening. Nonetheless, it still ruled over lands in Africa and Asia and controlled resources such as oil in the Middle East. A contradiction emerged between its people-focused internal politics and its condescension in the conduct of foreign and colonial affairs. Concerns around the emerging Cold War infused British imperial policy. Seeing the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as a communist vehicle, the British government treated it with suspicion, especially in view of its influence over two areas of imperial interest: the Iranian oil industry and the British colony of Malaya. An examination of the situations in both countries reveals the WFTU’s influence on trade union movements in those regions and uncovers London’s imperial anxieties about its position in the post-war global order.

Using a rich set of multilingual sources, this article traces the underexplored history of China’s involvement in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) from 1949 to 1966. It details the WFTU’s role in providing an institutional infrastructure for China’s international activism and documents the All-China Federation of Trade Unions’ engagements with socialist internationalism and people’s diplomacy.

After 1960, against the backdrop of the Sino–Soviet split, the WFTU became a platform for Chinese dissent against pro-Soviet positions. After a decade of mutual collaboration, China’s position changed dramatically and relations with the WFTU were eventually halted in 1966 due to developments in the international communist movement and the radicalization of China’s internal and external politics. By focusing on the WFTU, the article highlights the possibilities (and constraints) presented by Soviet-backed international organisations for China’s foreign relations, illuminating broader issues related to China’s socialist internationalism, labour diplomacy, and transnational networks during the early Cold War.

This article examines the role of travel in the practice of Cold War politics, focusing particularly on the experiences of Indonesian trade unionists who travelled between Indonesia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe. During the Sukarno era (1949–1966), Indonesians from the country's largest trade union federation SOBSI held leading positions in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). In 1965–1966, the army-directed purges against the Indonesian Left destroyed independent trade unionism as the country transitioned to the Suharto New Order regime. As leftist trade unionists were killed, imprisoned, or detained without trial, memories of travelling to the Communist bloc became denied, repressed, and submerged from history. The prison notebooks of Indonesian trade unionist Adam Soepardjan represent a unique set of underground writings produced after the army coup. An analysis of these notebooks reveals the ambivalences of Cold War political travel and the complex subjectivities of the traveller who appraises and reappraises the experiences of travel in a radically changed set of circumstances.

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.

This article explores the perspectives of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) on international labour unity during the 1980s and 1990s, a subject largely neglected in previous historical studies. With a focus on high-ranking WFTU officials, it investigates the political and ideological motivations behind the communist federation’s approach to international cooperation, as well as internal debates regarding rapprochement with its Western-oriented counterpart, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). It also examines the polycentric nature of the WFTU, revealing divergent regional perspectives from Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and the varying degrees of support for East–West engagement. The article argues that competing visions of international labour unity within the WFTU intensified internal divisions after 1989 between European and non-European trade unionists.