Another aspect of Third Periodism was its preference for red unions over yellow ones, especially building separate red unions to compete with the yellow ones.

Why didn't the Comintern revive the WIIU to compete with the IWW?

this is a very difficult issue, i think you would be interested in the history of the dutch trade-union history, which form the 20's until the 60 had 3 big union

NVV (Dutch Trade-union organisation) 1902 - 1989 later FNV (Federal Dutch Trade-union) 1989 - now = social-democratic union, after 1964 entered by communists
EVC (Unity Trade Union) 1944 - 1964 = Communist union after the expultion from work within the social democratic union during the red scare and the dissolvement of the NAS
NAS (National Workers Syndicate) 1893 - 1944= class-struggle union, communist tendencies (first as the SDP, then as the CPN and RSP), anarcho-syndicalist aspects, radical left wing

We actually had all the models from anarcho-syndicalist / communist red unions, to yellow union, to radical platforms within yellow unions. Its a good read to see the difficulties in all the different models

http://www.union.ie/

These guys are sort of a red union.

there is still the World Federation of Trade Union, which consists of Red Unions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_F...f_Trade_Unions

Regardless of current Russian influence, the WFTU is probably worth critical support, if only because it won't integrate itself more into a singular union.

I really dont see the "russian influence" anywhere in the WFTU since it has no unions in Russia anymore (only links with communists within unions and small local unions, the russian government continuously tries to ban communists from unions ). Its a typical wikipedia unsourced quotation based on some bourgeois historian who thinks the USSR and modern day Russia are one and the same and tries to make these ridiculous links using old coldwar propaganda. the WFTU is mostly run by the Latin Americans, Africans, Cubans, Portuguese, Greeks, Vietnamese, Spanish and French. I mean, just look at the name of title of that book making that statement; "Shadow world: resurgent Russia, the global new left, and radical Islam".... this reeks of extreme-right wing populism

Good pointer you've got there. BTW, is that individual communists or the KPRF, cuz that's quite a double standard if United Russia, Just/Fair Russia, or even the LDP are allowed to operate in unions.

there are all kind of loopholes to prevent communists from working within unions (from honest KPRF militants, to the RCWP-RPC) due to local corruption, ambiguous strike laws, and extreme-rigth/state sponsered para-militaries.

and btw, Fair Russia is a Potemkin party created by the Putin oligarchic clique to take away votes and weakens the united communist list. They do the same thing with the idiotic Liberal Democratic Party who steals votes and weakens the extreme right. This way he gets to have two parties who support the government from different sides of the political spectrum

how did the efforts to organise the unemployed mix into "red unionism" ?

I think an early example of this was found in the Arbeiter-Unionen "red union" movement affiliated with the KAPD back in the early 1920s.

There was the National Unemployed Workerts Movement(NUWM) in Britain. Although pre-dating the 'Third Period'(NUWM was set up in 1921) it could be justifiably called a "Red Union" as it largely organised and led by Communists and was never affiliated to the TUC or Labour Party.

About communist work in Trade-unions, I recommend you strongly to read Lozovsky's writings. He was a Profintern's leader, and what he said is still a reference for a true communist line againt anarcho-syndicalist, economist and reformist tendancies.