Workers of the World Unite – On Screen. The World Federation of Trade Unions, Das Lied der Ströme (1954), and the International Left

This article addresses the strategic use of media for mobilisation and education by the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), with a focus on the film, Das Lied der Ströme (Song of the Rivers), which was commissioned to document the Third WFTU Congress held in Vienna, October 1953. The genesis of the film is placed within the context of early Cold War efforts by international organisations on all sides of the divide - USIA, NATO, ILO, UNESCO, the Marshall Plan films - to mobilise public opinion. The film, under the direction of Joris Ivens, modelled the WFTU message of workers’ rights and commonalities through union membership around the globe, using film footage from over 75 countries. Based on archival evidence from the WFTU, Germany, and the Russian Federation, the article chronicles how Ivens gathered a transnational coalition of filmmakers, drawn from interwar and wartime alliances, to frame the WFTU Congress within a larger left-leaning, anti-colonial viewpoint. The film’s portrayal of workers, not only at work, but also in conversation and cooperation at the Congress, dramatises a ‘socialist utopia’ based on democratic participation

International relations · World history · World trade · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · International Labor and Employment Law