Modern anarcho-syndicalism is a direct continuation of those social aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First International and which were best understood and most strongly held by the libertarian wing of the great workers’ alliance.
Its development was a direct reaction against the concepts and methods of political socialism, a reaction which in the decade before the First World War had already manifested itself in the strong upsurge of the anarcho-syndicalist movement in France, Italy and especially Spain, where the great majority of the organised workers had always remained faithful to the doctrines of the libertarian wing of the International.
It was in France that the opposition against the ideas and methods of the modern labour parties found a clear expression in the theories and tactics of revolutionary syndicalism. The immediate cause for the development of these new tendencies in the French labour movement was the continual split of the various socialist parties in France. All these parties, with the exception of the Allemanists, which later gave up parliamentary activities completely, saw in the trade unions merely recruiting schools for their political objectives and had no understanding for their real functions. The constant dissensions among the various socialist factions was naturally carried over into the labour unions, and it happened quite frequently that when the unions of one faction went on strike the unions of the other factions walked in on them as strike breakers.
This untenable situation gradually opened the eyes of the workers. So the trade union congress in Nantes (1894) charged a special committee with the task of devising means for bringing about an understanding among all the trade union alliances. The result was the founding in the following year of the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT) at the congress in Limoges, which declared itself independent of all political parties. From then on there existed in France only two large trade union groups, the CGT and the Federation des Bourses du Travail [1], and in 1902, at the congress of the Montpellier the latter joined the CGT.
One often encounters the widely disseminated opinion, which was fostered by Werner Sombart in particular, that revolutionary syndicalism in France owes its origin to intellectuals like G. Sorel [2], E. Berth [3] and H. Lagardelle [4], who in the periodical Le Mouvement Socialiste, founded in 1899, elaborated in their way the intellectual results of the new movement.
This is utterly false. None of these men belonged to the movement, nor had they any appreciable influence in its internal development. Moreover, the CGT was not composed exclusively of revolutionary syndicates; certainly half of its members were of reformist tendency and had joined the CGT because even they recognised that the dependence of the trade unions on political parties was a misfortune for the movement.
But the revolutionary wing, which had had the most energetic and active elements of organised labour on its side as well as the most brilliant intellectual forces in the organisation, gave the CGT its characteristic stamp, and it was they who determined the development of the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism.
Many of them came from the Allemanists, but even more from the ranks of the anarchists, like Fernand Pelloutier [6], the highly intelligent secretary of the Bourse du Travaille, Émile Pouget [7], the editor of the official organ of the CGT La Voix du Peuple, P. Delesalle [8], G. Yvetot [9] and many others. It was mainly under the influence of the radical wing of the CGT that the new movement developed and found its expression in the Charter of Amiens (1906), in which the principles and methods of the movement were laid down.
This new movement in France found a strong echo among the Latin workers and penetrated also into other countries. The influence of French syndicalism at that time on larger and smaller sections of the international labour movement was strengthened in great degree by the internal crisis which at that period infected nearly all the socialist labour parties in Europe.
The battle between the so-called revisionists [10] and the rigid Marxists, and particularly the fact that their very parliamentary activities forced the most violent opponents of the revisionists of natural necessity to travel along the path of revisionism, caused many of the more thoughtful elements to reflect seriously.
They realised that participation in the politics of the nationalist states had not brought the labour movement a hair-breadth nearer to socialism, but had helped greatly to destroy the belief in the necessity of constructive socialist activity, and, worst of all, had robbed the people of their initiative by giving them the ruinous delusion that salvation always comes from above.
Under these circumstances socialism steadily lost its character of a cultural ideal, which was to prepare the workers for the dissolution of the present capitalist system and, therefore, could not let itself be halted by the artificial frontiers of the national states.
In the mind of the leaders of the modern labour parties the alleged aims of their movement were more and more blended with the interests of the national state, until at last they became unable to distinguish any definite boundary whatever between them.
It would be a mistake to find in this strange about-face an intentional betrayal by the leaders, as has so often been asserted. The truth is that we have to do here with a gradual assimilation to the modes and thoughts of the present society which necessarily had to affect the intellectual attitude of the leaders of the various labour parties in every country.
Those very parties which had once set out to conquer political power under the flag of socialism saw themselves compelled by the iron logic of conditions to sacrifice their socialist convictions bit by bit to the national policies of the state. The political power which they had wanted to conquer had gradually conquered their socialism until there was scarcely anything left but the name.
![[1] The Federation des Bourse du Travail](/sites/default/files/inline-images/-1-the-federation-des-bourse-du-travail.jpg)
[1] The Federation des Bourse du Travail was a French socialist-backed institution which ran buildings and services for training, employment and political education nationwide. Their political heyday was from 1897 to the 1920s.
[2] Georges Sorel (1847-1922), founder of the theory and “social myth” and “virtue of violence”.
[3] Edouard Berth (1875-1939) argued a strict form of “produuctivist” syndicalism to “out-capitalist” the capitalists.
[4] Hubert Lagardelle (1874-1958), influential early writer but drifted right, ending up as a Vichy government minister.
[5] The Allemanists were a union-centric party strongly linked to the Marxists.
![[6] Fernand Pelloutier (1867-1901)](/sites/default/files/inline-images/-6-fernand-pelloutier-1867-1901.jpg)
[6] Pelloutier (1867-1901), major influence on Sorel and the emergence of Italian Revolutionaay Syndicalism.
[7] Pouget (1860-1931), founding thinker of anarcho-syndicalism and helped popularise sabotage as a method of workplace dissent.
[8] Paul Delesalle (1870-1948), former steel worker, core anarchist militant and Pouget’s biographer.
[9] Georges Yvetot (1868-1942), ally of Pelloutier and succeeded him as secretary of the Bourse du Travail.
[10] Revisionists sat within the broad socialist movement, but argued for it to be achieved through democratic “evolutionary” means.