These were the considerations which led to the development of revolutionary syndicalism or, as it was later called, anarcho-syndicalism in France and other countries. The term workers’ syndicate meant at first merely an organisation of producers for the immediate betterment of their economic and social status. But the rise of revolutionary syndicalism gave this original meaning a much wider and deeper import.
Just as the party is a unified organisation, with definite political effort within the modern constitutional state which seeks to maintain the present order of society in one form or another, so, according to the syndicalist’s view, the trade unions are the unified organisation of labour and have for their purpose the defence of the producers within existing society and the preparing for and practical carrying out of the reconstruction of social life in the direction of socialism. They have a double purpose:
- To enforce the demands of the producers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living.
- To acquaint the workers with the technical management of production and economic life in general and prepare them to take the socio-economic organism into their own hands and shape it according to socialist principles.
Anarcho-syndicalists are of the opinion that political parties are not fitted to perform either of these two tasks. According to their conceptions the trade union has to be the spearhead of the labour movement, toughened by daily combats and permeated by a socialist spirit. Only in the realm of economy are workers able to display their full strength; for it is their activity as producers which holds together the social structure and guarantees the existence of society.
Only as a producer and creator of social wealth does the worker become aware of his strength. In solidarity with his followers he creates the great phalanx of militant labour, aflame with the spirit of freedom and animated by the ideal of social justice. For the anarcho-syndicalists the labour syndicate is the most fruitful germ of a future society, the elementary school of socialism in general. Every new social structure creates organs for itself in the body of the old organism; without this prerequisite every social evolution is unthinkable.
To them socialist education does not mean participation in the power policy of the national state, but the effort to make clear to the workers the intrinsic connections among social problems by technical instruction and the development of their administrative capacities, to prepare them for their role of re-shapers of economic life and give them the moral assurance required for the performance of their task.
No social body is better fitted for this purpose than the economic fighting organisation of the workers; it gives a definite direction to their social activities and toughens their resistance in the immediate struggle for the necessities of life and the defence of their human rights. At the same time it develops their ethical concepts without which any social transformation is impossible; vital solidarity with their fellows in destiny and moral responsibility for their actions.
Just because the educational work of anarcho-syndicalists is directed toward the development of independent thought and action, they are outspoken opponents of all centralising tendencies which are so characteristic of most of the present labour parties.
Centralism, that artificial scheme which operates from the top towards the bottom and turns over the affairs of administration to a small minority, is always attended by barren official routine; it crushes individual conviction, kills all personal initiative by lifeless discipline and bureaucratic ossification.
For the state, centralism is the appropriate form of organisation, since it aims at the greatest possible uniformity of social life for the maintenance of political and social equilibrium. But for a movement whose very existence depends on prompt action at any favourable moment and on the independent thought of its supporters, centralism is a curse which weakens its power of decision and systematically represses every spontaneous initiative.
The organisation of anarcho-syndicalism is based upon the principles of federalism, on free combination from below upward, putting the right of self-determination of every union above everything else and recognising only the organic agreement of all on the basis of like interests and common conviction. Their organisation is accordingly constructed on the following basis:
The workers in each locality join the unions of their respective trades. The trade unions of a city or a rural district combine in labour chambers which constitute the centres for local propaganda and education, and weld the workers together as producers to prevent the rise of any narrow-minded factional spirit. In times of local labour troubles they arrange for the united co-operation of the whole body of locally organised labour.
All the labour chambers are grouped according to districts and regions to form the National Federation of Labour Chambers, which maintains the permanent connection among the local bodies, arranges free adjustment of the productive labour of the members of the various organisations on co-operative lines, provides for the necessary co-ordination in the work of education and supports the local groups with council and guidance.
Every trade union is, moreover, federatively allied with all the organisations of the same industry, and these in turn with all related trades, so that all are combined in general industrial and agricultural alliances. It is their task to meet the demands of the daily struggles between capital and labour and to combine all the forces of the movement for common action where the necessity arises. Thus the Federation of the Labour Chambers and the Federation of the Industrial Alliances constitute the two poles about which the whole life of the labour syndicates revolves.
Such a form of organisation not only gives the workers every opportunity for direct action in the struggle for their daily bread, but it also provides them with the necessary preliminaries for the reorganisation of society, by their own strength and without alien intervention in case of a revolutionary crisis.
Anarcho-syndicalists are convinced that a socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of any government, but only by the unqualified collaboration of the workers, technicians and peasants to carry on production and distribution by their own administration in the interest of the community and on the basis of mutual agreements.
In such a situation the labour chambers would take over the administration of existing social capital in each community, determine the needs of the inhabitants of their districts and organise local consumption. Through the agency of the Federation of Labour Chambers it would be possible to calculate the total requirements of the whole country and adjust the work of production accordingly. On the other hand it would be the task of the industrial and agricultural alliances to take control of the instruments of production, transportation, etc, and provide the separate producing groups with what they need. In a word:
- Organisation of the total production of the country by the Federation of the Industrial Alliances and direction of work by labour councils elected by the workers themselves.
- Organisation of social contribution by the Federation of the Labour Chambers.
In this respect, also, practical experience has given the best instruction. It has shown that the many problems of a socialist reconstruction of society cannot be solved by any government, even when the famous dictatorship of the proletariat is meant. In Russia the Bolshevist dictatorship stood helpless for almost two years before the economic problems and tried to hide its incapacity behind a flood of decrees and ordinances most of which were buried at once in the various bureaus. If the world could be set free by decrees, there would long ago have been no problems left in Russia.
In its fanatical zeal for power, Bolshevism has violently destroyed the most valuable organs of a socialist order, by suppressing the co-operative societies, bringing the trade unions under state control, and depriving the soviets of their independence almost from the beginning.
So the dictatorship of the proletariat paved the way not for a socialist society but for the most primitive type of bureaucratic state capitalism and a reversion to political absolutism which was long ago abolished in most countries by bourgeois revolutions. In his Message to the Workers of the West European countries Kropotkin said, rightfully:
“Russia has shown us the way in which socialism cannot be realised, although the people, nauseated with the old regime, expressed no active resistance to the experiments of the new government.
“The idea of workers’ councils for the control of the political and economic life of the country is, in itself, of extraordinary importance ... but so long as the country is dominated by the dictatorship of a party, the workers’ and peasants’ councils naturally lose their significance.
“They are hereby degraded to the same passive role which the representatives of the estates used to play in the time of the absolute monarchy.”