Under Garden's leadership the CPA concentrated on trying to gain control of the New South Wales trade unions, and through them to re-enter the Labor Party (which was based on affiliated trade unions). This led to a split in the CPA, with more radical members rejecting the attempt to re-enter the Labor Party. In 1922, however, Garden attended the Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, which endorsed his strategy. Although the Labor Party, under its parliamentary leader Jack Lang, rejected Communism, Garden as Secretary of the Trades Hall was a powerful figure in the labour movement, and in 1923 he was readmitted to the Labor Party and elected to its state executive.