When the General Confederation of Labor adopted its new constitution in 1902, the main ideas of revolutionary syndicalism had already been clearly formulated. Since then, however, a considerable amount of literature has appeared on the subject, either clarifying or further developing various points of the doctrine. This literature consists mainly of numerous articles in the periodical press and of pamphlets and is, accordingly, of an unsystematic character. The attempt is made in this chapter to sum up in a systematic way the leading ideas of revolutionary syndicalism common to all who call themselves revolutionary syndicalists. Consideration of individual ideas and of contributions of particular writers will be left to a following chapter.

The fundamental idea of revolutionary syndicalism is the idea of class-struggle. Society is divided into two classes, the class of employers who possess the instruments of production and the class of workingmen who own nothing but their labor-power and who live by selling it.

Between the two classes an incessant struggle is going on. This struggle is a fact, not a theory in need of proof. It is a fact manifested every day in the relations between employers and wage-earners, a fact inherent in the economic organization of existing society.

The class-struggle is not a fact to be deplored; on the contrary, it should be hailed as the creative force in society, as the force which is working for the emancipation of the working-class. It is the class-struggle which is consolidating the workingmen into a compact unity opposed to the exploitation and domination of employers. It is the class-struggle which is evolving new ideas of right (droit) in opposition to the existing law. It is the class-struggle which is developing the self-consciousness, the will-power and the moral character of the workingmen and is creating forms of organization proper to them. In a word, it is the class-struggle which is forging the material and moral means of emancipation for the workingmen and putting these weapons into their hands.

The task of the syndicalists is to organize the more or less vague class-feeling of the workingmen and to raise it to the clear consciousness of class-interests and of class-ideals. This aim can be attained only by organizing the workingmen into syndicats. The syndicat is an association of workingmen of the same or of similar trades, and is held together by bonds of common interest. In this is its strength. Of all human groupings it is the most fundamental and the most permanent, because men in society are interested above everything else in the satisfaction of their economic needs.

The strength, permanence, and class-character of economic groups are made conspicuous by comparison with forms of grouping based on other principles. Political parties, groups of idealists, or communities professing a common creed, are associations which cannot but be weak and transient in view of their heterogeneous composition and of the accidental character of their bond of union. Political bodies, for instance, are made up of men of various interests grouped only by community of ideas. This is true even of the Socialist party which consists of manufacturers, financiers, doctors, and lawyers, as well as of workingmen. Even the Socialist party cannot, therefore, make prominent the class-division of society, and tends to merge all classes into one conglomeration which is unstable and incapable of persistent collective action. Only in groupings of real and fundamental interests such as the syndicats, are men of the same conditions brought together for purposes inextricably bound up with life.

The syndicat groups men of one and the same trade in their capacity of workingmen only, regardless of any other qualifications. The workingmen entering a syndicat may be Catholics or Protestants, Republicans, Socialists, or Monarchists, they may be of any color, race or nationality; in their capacity of workingmen they are all equally welcome and legitimate members of the syndicat. A workingman enrolling in a syndicat is not entering a party, not subscribing to a platform, nor accepting a creed. He is simply entering into a relation which is forced upon him by his very position in society, and is grouping himself with his fellowmen in such a way as to derive more strength for himself in the struggle for existence, contributing at the same time to the strength of his fellowmen.

These conditions make the syndicat peculiarly fit to serve the interests of the workingmen. The syndicat is a sphere of influence which by the volume of its suggestion and by the constancy and intensity of its action shapes the feelings and ideas of the workingmen after a certain pattern. In the syndicat the workingmen forget the things which divide them and are intent upon that which unites them. In the syndicat the workingmen meet to consider common interests, to discuss their identical situation, to plan together for defense and aggression, and in all ways are made to feel their group-solidarity and their antagonism to the class of employers.

In view of this the syndicats should prefer industrial unionism to craft unionism. The separation of workingmen into trades is apt to develop in them a corporate spirit which is not in harmony with the class-idea. The industrial union, on the contrary, widens the mental horizon of the workingman and his range of solidarity with his fellow workers and thus serves better to strengthen his class-consciousness.

The syndicat is the instrument with which the workingmen can enter into a “direct” struggle with employers. “Direct action” is what the syndicalists most insist upon, as the only means of educating the workingmen and of preparing them for the final act of emancipation. “Direct action” is action by the workingmen themselves without the help of intermediaries; it is not necessarily violent action, though it may assume violent forms; it is the manifestation of the consciousness and of the will of the workingmen themselves, without the intervention of an external agent: it consists in pressure exerted directly by those interested for the sake of obtaining the ends in view.

“Direct action” may assume various forms, but the principal ones in the struggle against employers are: the strike, the boycott, the label, and sabotage.

The strike, in the view of the syndicalists, is the manifestation of the class-struggle par excellence. The strike brings the workingmen face to face with the employers in a clash of interests. A strike clears up, as if by a flash of lightning, the deep antagonism which exists between those who employ and those who work for employers. It further deepens the chasm between them, consolidating the employers on the one hand, and the workingmen on the other, over against one another. It is a revolutionary fact of great value.

All strikes, partial, general in a locality, or general in some one trade, have this revolutionary influence, particularly when they are conducted in a certain way. If the workingmen rely only on their treasury, the strike degenerates into a mere contest between two money bags—that of the employer and that of the syndicat—and loses much of its value. Still more are the syndicalists opposed to methods of conciliation and arbitration. The idea of the revolutionary syndicalists is that a strike should be won by Sturm und Drang, by quick and energetic pressure on employers. The financial strength of workingmen when striking should not be considered. Money may be supplied by contributions of workingmen of other trades and localities, in itself another means of developing the solidarity of the working-class. Sometimes a strike may be won by calling out sympathetic strikes in other trades.

Strikes conducted in this manner yield practical results and serve also as means of educating the workingmen. They reveal to the workingmen their power, as producers, and their importance in the productive system of society. The label, on the other hand, is a means of bringing home to the workingmen their importance as consumers, and of making them wield this power for their own benefit.

The boycott reveals the power of the workingmen, either as producers or as consumers. It may be wielded against an employer whose shop is avoided, or against a firm in its capacity as seller. It is an effective means of forcing employers to terms.

Sabotage consists in obstructing in all possible ways the regular process of production to the dismay and disadvantage of the employer. The manifestations of sabotage are many, varying with the nature of the industry and with the ingenuity of the workers. In its primitive form, sabotage is a tacit refusal on the part of the workers to exert properly their energy or skill in the performance of their work, in retaliation for any injustice which, in their opinion, had been inflicted upon them by their employers. This form of sabotage includes such practices as those summarized in the Scotch Ca Canny (slow work for low wages) and in the French principle of a mauvaise paye mauvais travail (bad work for bad pay). It also includes the recent practices of the railroad workers in Austria, Italy, and France who disorganized the railway service of their respective countries by obeying literally all the rules and regulations of the service code and by refusing to apply discretion and common sense in the performance of their duties. The distinguishing characteristic of this form of sabotage is that in applying it the workers remain within the limits of their contract and avoid any manifest violation of the law, though the loss inflicted upon the employer may be very heavy.

A more aggressive form of sabotage is that which expresses itself in deliberate damage done either to the product of labor or to the nature of the service. An instance of the latter was the so-called grÈve perlÉe applied by the French railway men, which consisted in wilful misdirection of baggage and of perishable merchandise. This form of sabotage implies disregard for the laws of property and for the clauses of the labor contract, but it is carried on in a manner which makes detection of motive very difficult.[152] From this form of sabotage it is but a short step to the most aggressive and violent kind which finds expression in the deliberate and open disorganization of machinery. This form of sabotage has nothing in common with the destruction of machinery practiced by unorganized workers during the early stages of the capitalist rÉgime. It aims not at the destruction of the machine as a means of production, but at the temporary disability of the machine during strikes for the purpose of preventing employers to carry on production with the help of strikebreakers. Even in this most aggressive form, sabotage may involve very little violence. The syndicalists strongly condemn any act of sabotage which may result in the loss of life.

Such are the “direct” methods of struggle against employers. But the revolutionary syndicalists have another enemy, the State, and the struggle against the latter is another aspect of “direct action.”

The State appears to the syndicalists as the political organization of the capitalist class. Whether monarchist, constitutional, or republican, it is one in character, an organization whose function it is to uphold and to protect the privileges of the property-owners against the demands of the working-class. The workingmen are, therefore, necessarily forced to hurl themselves against the State in their efforts toward emancipation, and they cannot succeed until they have broken the power of the State.

The struggle against the State, like the struggle against the employers, must be carried on directly by the workingmen themselves. This excludes the participation of the syndicats in politics and in electoral campaigning. The parliamentary system is a system of representation opposed in principle to “direct action,” and serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, for the management of which it is particularly suited. The workingmen can derive no benefit from it. The parliamentary system breeds petty, self-seeking politicians, corrupts the better elements that enter into it and is a source of intrigues and of “wire-pulling.” The so-called representatives of the workingman do not and cannot avoid the contagious influence of parliament. Their policy degenerates into bargaining, compromising and collaboration with the bourgeois political parties and weakens the class-struggle.

The syndicats, therefore, if not hostile, must remain at least indifferent to parliamentary methods and independent of political parties. They must, however, untiringly pursue their direct struggle against the State. The direct method of forcing the State to yield to the demands of the workingmen consists in exerting external pressure on the public authorities. Agitation in the press, public meetings, manifestations, demonstrations and the like, are the only effective means of making the government reckon with the will of the working-class.

By direct pressure on the government the workingmen may obtain reforms of immediate value to themselves. Only such reforms, gained and upheld by force, are real. All other reforms are but a dead letter and a means of deceiving the workingmen.

The democratic State talks much about social reforms, labor legislation and the like. In fact, however, all labor laws that are of real importance have been passed only under the pressure of the workingmen. Those which owe their existence to democratic legislators alone are devised to weaken the revolutionary strength of the working-class. Among such laws are those on conciliation and arbitration. All democratic governments are anxious to have Boards of Conciliation and of Arbitration, in order to check strikes which are the main force of the working-class. Workingmen must be opposed to these reforms, which are intended to further the harmony and collaboration of classes, because the ideology of class-harmony is one of the most dangerous snares which are set for the workingmen in a democratic State.[153] This ideology blinds the workingmen to the real facts of inequality and of class-distinctions which are the very foundations of existing society. It allures them into hopes which cannot be fulfilled and leads them astray from the only path of emancipation which is the struggle of classes.

Another idea which is used by the democratic State for the same purpose is the idea of patriotism. “Our country”, “our nation”, are mottoes inculcated into the mind of the workingman from his very childhood. But these words have no meaning for the workingman. The workingman's country is where he finds work. In search of work he leaves his native land and wanders from place to place. He has no fatherland (patrie) in any real meaning of the term. Ties of tradition, of a common intellectual and moral heritage do not exist for him. In his experience as workingman he finds that there is but one real tie, the tie of economic interest which binds him to all the workingmen of the world, and separates him at the same time from all the capitalists of the world. The international solidarity of the workingmen and their anti-patriotism are necessary consequences of the class struggle.

The democratic State, like any other State, does not rely upon ideological methods alone in keeping down the workingmen. It has recourse to brute force as well. The judiciary, the administrative machinery and especially the army are used as means of defeating the movements of the working-class. The army is particularly effective as a means of breaking strikes, of crushing the spirit of independence in the workingmen, and as a means of keeping up the spirit of militarism. An anti-militaristic propaganda is, therefore, one of the most important forms of struggle against the State, as well as against capitalism.

Anti-militarism consists in carrying on in the army a propaganda of syndicalist ideas. The soldiers are reminded that they are workingmen in uniforms, who will one day return to their homes and shops, and who should not, therefore, forget the solidarity which binds them to their fellow workingmen in blouses. The soldiers are called upon not to use their arms in strikes, and in case of a declaration of war to refuse to take up arms. The syndicalists threaten in case of war to declare a general strike. They are ardent apostles of international peace which is indispensable, in their opinion, to the success of their movement.

By “direct action” against employers and the State the workingmen may wrest from the ruling classes reforms which may improve their condition more or less. Such reforms can not pacify the working-class because they do not alter the fundamental conditions of the wage system, but they are conducive to the fortification of the working-class and to its preparation for the final struggle. Every successful strike, every effective boycott, every manifestation of the workingmen's will and power is a blow directed against the existing order; every gain in wages, every shortening of hours of work, every improvement in the general conditions of employment is one more position of importance occupied on the march to the decisive battle, the general strike, which will be the final act of emancipation.

The general strike—the supreme act of the class-war—will abolish the classes and will establish new forms of society. The general strike must not be regarded as a deus ex machina which will suddenly appear to solve all difficulties, but as the logical outcome of the syndicalist movement, as the act that is being gradually prepared by the events of every day. However remote it may appear, it is not a Utopia and its possibility cannot be refuted on the ground that general strikes have failed in the past and may continue to fail in the future. The failures of to-day are building the success of to-morrow, and in time the hour of the successful general strike will come.

What are the forms of the social organization which will take the place of those now in existence? The Congress of Lyons (1901) had expressed the wish to have this question on the program of the next Congress. In order that the answer to this question should reflect the ideas prevalent among the workingmen, the Confederal Committee submitted the question to the syndicats for study. A questionnaire was sent out containing the following questions:

(1) How would your syndicat act in order to transform itself from a group for combat into a group for production?

(2) How would you act in order to take possession of the machinery pertaining to your industry?

(3) How do you conceive the functions of the organized shops and factories in the future?

(4) If your syndicat is a group within the system of highways, of transportation of products or of passengers, of distribution, etc., how do you conceive its functioning?

(5) What will be your relations to your federation of trade or of industry after your reorganization?

(6) On what principle would the distribution of products take place and how would the productive groups procure the raw material for themselves?

(7) What part would the Bourses du Travail play in the transformed society and what would be their task with reference to the statistics and to the distribution of products?

At the Congress of Montpellier, in 1902, a number of reports were presented answering the above questions. The reports were in the name of the syndicats and came from different parts of France. Only a limited number of them were printed as appendices to the general report of the Congress. Among them, it may be interesting to note, was the report of the syndicat of agricultural laborers. The rest were summed up in the official organ of the Confederation, La Voix du Peuple.

The reports differed in details. Some emphasized one point more than another and vice versa. But the general character of the reports was identical and showed a consensus of opinion on the main outlines of that “economic federalism” which is the ideal of the syndicalists.

According to this ideal, the syndicat will constitute the cell of society. It will group the producers of one and the same trade who will control their means of production. Property, however, will be social or collective, and no one syndicat will be the exclusive owner of any portion of the collective property. It will merely use it with the consent of the entire society.

The syndicat will be connected with the rest of society through its relations with the Federation of its trade, the Bourse du Travail, and the General Confederation. With the National Federation relations will be mainly technical and special, and the rÔle of the Federation will be insignificant. With the General Confederation relations will be indirect and mainly by mediation of the Bourse du Travail. Relations with the latter will be of permanent importance, as the Bourses du Travail will be the centers of economic activity.

The Bourse du Travail—in the ideal system of the syndicalists—will concentrate all local interests and serve as a connecting link between a locality and the rest of the world. In its capacity as local center it will collect all statistical data necessary for the regular flow of economic life. It will keep itself informed on the necessities of the locality and on its resources, and will provide for the proper distribution of products; as intermediary between the locality and the rest of the country it will facilitate the exchange of products between locality and locality and will provide for the introduction of raw materials from outside.

In a word, the Bourse will combine in its organization the character both of local and of industrial autonomy. It will destroy the centralized political system of the present State and will counter-balance the centralizing tendencies of industry.

To the General Confederation will be left only services of national importance, railways for instance. However, even in the management of national public utilities the National Federation and the Bourses will have the first word. The function of the General Confederation will consist mainly in furnishing general information and in exerting a controlling influence. The General Confederation will also serve as intermediary in international relations.

In this social system the State as now constituted will have no place. Of course, one may call the ideal system of the syndicalists a State. All depends on the definition given to the term. But when the syndicalists speak of the State, they mean an organization of society in which a delegated minority centralizes in its hands the power of legislation on all matters. This power may be broken up and divided among a number of governing bodies, as in the federal system of the United States, but it does not thereby change its character. The essential characteristic of the State is to impose its rule from without. The legislative assemblies of the present State decide upon questions that are entirely foreign to them, with which they have no real connection in life and which they do not understand. The rules they prescribe, the discipline they impose, come as an external agency to intervene in the processes of social life. The State is, therefore, arbitrary and oppressive in its very nature.

To this State-action the syndicalists oppose a discipline coming from within, a rule suggested by the processes of collective life itself, and imposed by those whose function it is to carry on those processes. It is, as it were, a specialization of function carried over into the domain of public life and made dependent upon industrial specialization. No one should legislate on matters unless he has the necessary training. The syndicats, the delegates of the syndicats to the Bourses du Travail, and so on, only they can properly deal with their respective problems. The rules they would impose would follow from a knowledge of the conditions of their social functions and would be, so to speak, a “natural” discipline made inevitable by the conditions themselves. Besides, many of the functions of the existing State would be abolished as unnecessary in a society based on common ownership, on co-operative work, and on collective solidarity. The necessary functions of local administration would be carried on by the Bourses du Travail.

In recent years, however, revolutionary syndicalists have not expatiated upon the forms of the future society. Convinced that the social transformation is inevitable, they have not thought it necessary to have any ready-made model upon the lines of which the social organization of the future should be carved. The revolutionary classes of the past had no idea of the new social system they were struggling for, and no ready-made plan is necessary for the working-class. Prepared by all preliminary struggle, the workingmen will find in themselves, when the time comes, sufficient creative power to remake society. The lines of the future, however, are indicated in a general way by the development of the present, and the syndicalist movement is clearly paving the way for an “economic federalism”.

The workingmen are being prepared for their future rÔle by the experiences of syndicalist life. The very struggle which the syndicats carry on trains the workingmen in solidarity, in voluntary discipline, in power and determination to resist oppression, and in other moral qualities which group life requires. Moreover, the syndicats, particularly the Bourses du Travail, are centers where educational activities are carried on. Related to the facts of life and to the concrete problems of the day, this educational work, in the form of regular courses, lectures, readings, etc., is devised to develop the intellectual capacities of the workingmen.

The struggle of the present and the combat of the future imply the initiative, the example and the leadership of a conscious and energetic minority ardently devoted to the interests of its class. The experience of the labor movement has proven this beyond all doubt. The mass of workingmen, like every large mass, is inert. It needs an impelling force to set it in motion and to put to work its tremendous potential energy. Every strike, every labor demonstration, every movement of the working-class is generally started by an active and daring minority which voices the sentiments of the class to which it belongs.

The conscious minority, however, can act only by carrying with it the mass, and by making the latter participate directly in the struggle. The action of the conscious minority is, therefore, just the opposite of the action of parliamentary representatives. The latter are bent on doing everything themselves, on controlling absolutely the affairs of the country, and are, therefore, anxious, to keep the masses as quiet, as inactive and as submissive as possible. The conscious minority, on the contrary, is simply the advance-guard of its class; it cannot succeed, unless backed by the solid forces of the masses; the awareness, the readiness and the energy of the latter are indispensable conditions of success and must be kept up by all means.

The idea of the “conscious minority” is opposed to the democratic principle. Democracy is based upon majority-rule, and its method of determining the general will is universal suffrage. But experience has shown that the “general will” is a fiction and that majority-rule really becomes the domination of a minority—which can impose itself upon all and exploit the majority in its own interests. This is inevitably so, because universal suffrage is a clumsy, mechanical device, which brings together a number of disconnected units and makes them act without proper understanding of the thing they are about. The effect of political majorities when they do make themselves felt is to hinder advance and to suppress the progressive, active and more developed minorities.

The practice of the labor movement is necessarily the reverse of this. The syndicats do not arise out of universal suffrage and are not the representatives of the majority in the democratic sense of the term. They group but a minority of all workingmen and can hardly expect ever to embrace the totality or even the majority of the latter. The syndicats arise through a process of selection. The more sensitive, the intellectually more able, the more active workingmen come together and constitute themselves a syndicat. They begin to discuss the affairs of their trade. When determined to obtain its demands, the syndicat enters into a struggle, without at first finding out the “general will.” It assumes leadership and expects to be followed, because it is convinced that it expresses the feelings of all. The syndicat constitutes the leading conscious minority.

The syndicat obtains better conditions not for its members alone, but for all the members of the trade and often for all the workingmen of a locality or of the country. This justifies its self-assumed leadership, because it is not struggling for selfish ends, but for the interests of all. Besides, the syndicat is not a medieval guild and is open to all. If the general mass of workingmen do not enter the syndicats, they themselves renounce the right of determining conditions for the latter. Benefiting by the struggles of the minority, they cannot but submit to its initiative and leadership. The syndicat, therefore, is not to be compared with “cliques,” “rings,” “political machines,” and the like. The syndicat, it must be remembered, is a group of individuals belonging to the same trade. By this very economic situation, the members of a syndicat are bound by ties of common interest with the rest of their fellow-workingmen. A sense of solidarity and an altruistic feeling of devotion to community interests must necessarily arise in the syndicat which is placed in the front ranks of the struggling workingmen. The leadership of the syndicalist minority, therefore, is necessarily disinterested and beneficent and is followed voluntarily by the workingmen.

Thus, grouping the active and conscious minority the syndicats lead the workingmen as a class in the struggle for final emancipation. Gradually undermining the foundations of existing society, they are developing within the framework of the old the elements of a new society, and when this process shall have sufficiently advanced, the workingmen rising in the general strike will sweep away the undermined edifice and erect the new society born from their own midst.