The writers who have contributed to the development of revolutionary syndicalism may be divided into two groups. One comprises men who, like Pelloutier, Pouget, Griffuelhes, Delesalle, Niel, Yvetot and others, either belong to the working-class, or have completely identified themselves with the workingmen. The other consists of a number of “intellectuals” who stand outside of the syndicalist movement.

The members of the first group have played the leading part in building up the syndicalist movement. Pelloutier was secretary of the Federation of Bourses from 1894 to 1901; Griffuelhes was secretary of the General Confederation of Labor from 1901 to 1908; Pouget was assistant secretary of the Confederation and editor of the Voix du Peuple from 1900 to 1908; Yvetot has been one of the secretaries of the Confederation since 1902; Niel was secretary of the General Confederation for a short time in 1909, and the others now occupy or have occupied prominent places in the syndicalist organizations.

The close connection of the members of this group with the syndicalist movement and with the General Confederation of Labor has had its influence upon their writings. Their ideas have been stimulated by close observation of the facts of syndicalist life, and the course of their thought has been determined largely by the struggles of the day. There is a stronger emphasis in their writings upon methods, upon “direct action,” and upon relations to other existing groups. There is less speculation and pure theorizing. In other respects the men of this group differ. They have come from different political groupings: Pouget and Yvetot, for instance, from the Communist-Anarchists; Griffuelhes from the Allemanists. They have different views on the relation of revolutionary syndicalism to other social theories, differences which will be brought out further on.

The second group of writers, the so-called “intellectuals” outside the syndicalist movement, have grouped themselves about the monthly Le Mouvement Socialiste, started in 1899 by M. Hubert Lagardelle, a member of the Socialist Party, and about the weekly La Guerre Sociale, of which Gustave HervÉ is editor. Le Mouvement Socialiste was at first a Socialist monthly review, but accentuated its sympathy for the syndicalists as time went on, and became an expressly revolutionary syndicalist organ in 1904. The Mouvement Socialiste counted among its constant contributors down to 1910 M. Georges Sorel and Edouard Berth. These three writers, Sorel, Lagardelle, and Berth, have tried to systematize the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism and to put them on a philosophical and sociological basis. The most prolific of them and the one who has been proclaimed “the most profound thinker of the new school” is M. Georges Sorel.

M. Georges Sorel has written on various subjects. Among the works from his pen are volumes on Socrates, on The Historical System of Renan, on The Ruin of the Ancient World, a number of articles on ethics and on various other topics. The works that bear on revolutionary syndicalism which alone can be here considered, are: L'Avenir Socialiste des Syndicats, La DÉcomposition du Marxisme, Introduction À l'Économie Moderne, Les Illusions du ProgrÈs, RÉflexions sur la Violence, and a number of articles in various periodicals.

The works of M. Sorel on revolutionary syndicalism stretch over a period of ten to twelve years: The Socialist Future of the Syndicats was written in 1897; the second edition of his Reflections on Violence appeared in 1910. Within this period of time the thought of M. Sorel has not only steadily developed in scope but has also changed in many essential points. It would require a separate study to point out the changes and their significance. This is out of the question in this study. The salient points only of M. Sorel's theories will be treated here, therefore, without consideration of their place in the intellectual history of their author.

M. Sorel has attached his theories to the ideas of Marx. Revolutionary syndicalism is to M. Sorel but the revival and further development of the fundamental ideas of Marx. The “new school” considers itself, therefore, “neo-Marxist,” true to “the spirit” of Marx[154] though rejecting the current interpretations of Marx and completing the lacunae which it finds in Marx. This work of revision it considers indispensable because, on the one hand, Marx was not always “well inspired,”[155] and often harked back to the past instead of penetrating into the future; and because, on the other hand, Marx did not know all the facts that have now become known; Marx knew well the development of the bourgeoisie, but could not know the development of the labor movement which has become such a tremendous factor in social life.[156] The “new school” does not consider itself by any means bound to admire “the illusions, the faults, the errors of him who has done so much to elaborate the revolutionary ideas.”[157] What it retains of Marx is his essential and fruitful idea of social evolution, namely, that the development of each social system furnishes the material conditions for effective and durable changes in the social relations within which a new system begins its development.[158] Accordingly, Socialists must drop all utopian ideas: they must understand that Socialism is to be developed gradually in the bosom of capitalism itself and is to be liberated from within capitalistic surroundings only when the time is ripe.

The ripening of socialism within capitalism does not mean merely technical development. This is indispensable of course: socialism can be only an economic system based on highly developed and continually progressing productive forces; but this is one aspect of the case only. The other, a no less if not more important aspect, is the development of new moral forces within the old system; that is, the political, juridical and moral development of the working-class,[159] of that class which alone can establish a socialist society.

This was also the idea of Marx: “Marx also saw that the workingmen must acquire political and juridical capacity before they can triumph.”[160] The revolution which the working-class is pursuing is not a simple change in the personnel or in the form of the government; it is a complete overthrow of the “traditional State” which is to be replaced by the workingmen's organizations. Such a complete transformation presupposes “high moral culture” in the workingmen and a capacity for directing the economic functions of society. The social revolution will thus come only when the workingmen are “ready” for it, that is, when they feel that they can assume the direction of society. The “moral” education of the working-class, therefore, is the essential thing; Socialism will not have to “organize labor”, because capitalism will have accomplished this work before. But in order that the working-class should be able to behave like “free men” in the “workshop created by capitalism”,[161] they must have developed the necessary capacities. Socialism, therefore, reduces itself “to the revolutionary apprenticeship”[162] of the workingmen; “to teaching the workingmen to will, to instructing them by action, and to revealing to them their proper capacities; such is the whole secret of the socialist education of the people.”[163]

The workingmen can find the moral training necessary for the triumph of socialism only in the syndicats and in the experience of syndical life. The syndicats develop the administrative and organizing capacities of the workingmen. In the syndicats the workingmen learn to do their business themselves and to reject the dictatorship of “intellectuals” who have conquered the field of politics which they have made to serve their ambitions.

The greatest organizing and educating force created by the syndicalist movement is the idea of the general strike. The general strike means a complete and “absolute” revolution. It is the idea of a decisive battle between the bourgeoisie and the working-class assuring the triumph of the latter. This idea is a “social myth” and hence its tremendous historic force. “Social myths” always arise during great social movements. The men who participate in great social movements, represent to themselves their actions in the near future in the form of images of battles assuring the triumph of their cause. These images are “myths.” The images of the early Christians on the coming of Christ and on the ruin of the pagan world are an illustration of a “social myth.” The period of the Reformation saw the rise of “social myths,” because the conditions were such as to make it necessary for the “men of heart” who were inspired by “the will of deliverance” to create “images” which satisfying their “sentiments of struggle” kept up their zeal and their devotion.

The “social myth” presupposes a social group which harbors an intense desire of deliverance, which feels all the difficulties in its way and which finds deep satisfaction in picturing to itself its future struggles and future triumph. Such images must not and cannot be analyzed like a thing; they must be taken en bloc, and it is particularly necessary to avoid comparing the real historic facts with the representations which were in circulation before the facts took place.

“Myths” are indispensable for a revolutionary movement; they concentrate the force of the rising class and intensify it to the point of action. No myth can possibly be free from utopian conceptions. But the utopian elements are not essential. The essentials are the hope back of the myth, the ideal strengthened by the myth, and the impatience of deliverance embodied in the myth.

The general strike is the “social myth” of the working-class longing for emancipation. It is the expression of the convictions of the working-class “in the language of movement,” the supreme concentration of the desires, the hopes, and the ideals of the working-class. Its importance for the future of Socialism, therefore, is paramount. The idea of the general strike keeps alive and fortifies in the workingmen their class-consciousness and revolutionary feelings. Every strike on account of it assumes the character of a skirmish before the great decisive battle which is to come. Owing to the general strike idea, “socialism remains ever young, the attempts made to realize social peace seem childish, the desertion of comrades who run over into the ranks of the bourgeoisie, far from discouraging the masses, excites them still more to revolt; in a word, the rupture (between bourgeoisie and working-class) is never in danger of disappearing.”[164]

This rupture is an indispensable condition of Socialism. Socialism cannot be the continuation of democracy; it must be, if it can be at all, a totally “new culture” built upon ideas and institutions totally different from the ideas and from the institutions of democracy. Socialism must have its own economic, judicial, political and moral institutions evolved by the working-class independently from those of the bourgeoisie, and not in imitation of the latter.

Sorel is bitter in his criticism of democracy; it is, in his view, the rÉgime par excellence in which men are governed “by the magical power of high-sounding words rather than by ideas; by formulas rather than by reasons; by dogmas the origin of which nobody cares to find out, rather than by doctrines based on observation.”[165] It is the kingdom of the professionals of politics, over whom the people can have no control. Sorel thinks that even the spread of knowledge does not render the masses more capable of choosing and of supervising their so-called representatives and that the further society advances in the path of democracy, the less effective does control by the people become.[166] The whole system of democracy, in the opinion of M. Sorel, is based on the “fiction of the general will” and is maintained by a mechanism (campaigning, elections, etc.) which can result only in demoralization. It delivers the country into the hands of “charlatans,” of office-seekers and of idle talkers who may assume the air of great men, but who are never fit for their task.

The working-class must, therefore, break entirely with democracy and evolve from within itself its own ideas and original institutions. This complete rupture between the ideas of the past and those of the future contradicts the conception of progress now in vogue. But the conception of progress is rather a deception than a conception. As held to-day, it is full of illusions, of errors, and of misconceptions. The idea of progress is characteristic of democracy and is cherished by the bourgeois classes because it permits them to enjoy their privileges in peace. Lulled by the optimistic illusion that everything is for the best in this best of all worlds, the privileged classes can peacefully and hopefully pass by the misery and the disorders of existing society. This conception of progress, like all other ideas of democracy, was evolved by the rising middle classes of the eighteenth century, mainly by the functionaries of royalty who furnished the theoretical guides of the Revolution. But, in truth, the only real progress is the development of industrial technique[167] —the constant invention of machinery and the increase of productive forces. The latter create the material conditions out of which a new culture arises, completely breaking with the culture of the past.

One of the factors promoting the development of productive forces is “proletarian violence.” This violence is not to be thought of after the model of the “Reign of Terror” which was the creation of the bourgeoisie. “Proletarian violence” does not mean that there should be a “great development of brutality” or that “blood should be shed in torrents” (versÉ À flots).[168] It means that the workingmen in their struggle must manifest their force so as to intimidate the employers; it means that “the social conflicts must assume the character of pure struggles similar to those of armies in a campaign.”[169] Such violence will show the capitalist class that all their efforts to establish social peace are useless; the capitalists will then turn to their economic interests exclusively; the type of a forceful, energetic “captain of industry” will be the result, and all the possibilities of capitalism will be developed.

On the other hand, violence stimulates ever anew the class-feelings of the workingmen and their sentiments of the sublime mission which history has imposed upon them. It is necessary that the revolutionary syndicalists should feel that they are fulfiling the great and sublime mission of renovating the world; this is their only compensation for all their struggles and sufferings. The feelings of sublimity and enthusiasm have disappeared from the bourgeois-world, and their absence has contributed to the decadence of the bourgeoisie. The working-class is again introducing these feelings by incorporating them in the idea of the general strike, and is, therefore, making possible a moral rejuvenation of the world. All these ideas may seem tinged with pessimism. But “nothing very great (trÈs haut) has been accomplished in this world” without pessimism.[170] Pessimism is a “metaphysics of morals” rather than a theory of the world; it is a conception of “a march towards deliverance” and presupposes an experimental knowledge of the obstacles in the way of our imaginings or in other words “a sentiment of social determinism” and a feeling of our human weakness.[171] The pessimist “regards social conditions as forming a system enchained by an iron law, the necessity of which must be submitted to as it is given en bloc, and which can disappear only after a catastrophe involving the whole.”[172] This catastrophic character the general strike has and must have, if it is to retain its profound significance.

The catastrophic character of the general strike enhances its moral value. The workingmen are stimulated by it to prepare themselves for the final combat by a moral effort over themselves. But only in such unique moments of life when “we make an effort to create a new man within ourselves” “do we take possession of ourselves” and become free in the Bergsonian sense of the term. The general strike, therefore, raises socialism to the rÔle of the greatest moral factor of our time.

Thus, M. Sorel having started out with Marx winds up with Bergson. The attempt to connect his views with the philosophy of Bergson has been made by M. Sorel in all his later works. But all along M. Sorel claims to be “true to the spirit of Marx” and tries to prove this by various quotations from the works of Marx. It is doubtful, however, whether there is an affinity between the “spirit” of Marx and that of Professor Bergson. It appears rather that M. Sorel has tacitly assumed this affinity because he interprets the “spirit” of Marx in a peculiar and arbitrary way.

Without any pretense of doing full justice to the subject, three essential points may be indicated which perhaps sufficiently prove that “neo-Marxism” has drifted so far away from Marx as to lose touch with his “spirit.” These three points bear upon the very kernel of Marxism: its conception of determinism, its intellectualism, and its emphasis on the technical factors of social evolution.

The Marxian conception of social determinism is well known. The social process was thought of by Marx as rigidly “necessary,” as an organic, almost as a mechanical process. The impression of social necessity one gets in reading Marx is so strong as to convey the feeling of being carried on by an irresistible process to a definite social end.

In M. Sorel's works, on the contrary, social determinism is a word merely, the concept back of it is not assimilated. M. Sorel speaks of the general strike and of Socialism as of possibilities or probabilities, not of necessities. In reading him, one feels that M. Sorel himself never felt the irresistible character of the logical category of necessity.

The difference in the second point follows from the difference in the first. Marx never doubted the possibility of revealing the secret of the social process. Trained in the “panlogistic school,” Marx always tacitly assumed that socialism could be scientific, that the procedure of science could prove the necessity of social evolution going in one direction and not in any other. It was the glory of having given this proof which he claimed for himself and which has been claimed for him by his disciples.

M. Sorel is expressly not “true to the spirit” of Marx in this point. “Science has no way of foreseeing,”[173] says he. His works are full of diatribes against the pretention of science to explain everything. He attributes a large rÔle to the unclear, to the subconscious and to the mystical in all social phenomena. A sentence like the following may serve to illustrate this point. Says M. Sorel:

Socialism is necessarily a very obscure thing, because it treats of production—that is, of what is most mysterious in human activity—and because it proposes to realize a radical transformation in this region which it is impossible to describe with the clearness which is found in the superficial regions of the world. No effort of thought, no progress of knowledge, no reasonable induction will ever be able to dispel the mystery which envelops Socialism.[174]

This, according to Sorel, is just what “Marxism has recognized”: M. Sorel, certainly, “knows his Marx.”

In the third point, M. Sorel “the revolutionary revisionist,” comes very close to M. Bernstein, “the evolutionary revisionist.” The coming of Socialism is made independent of those technical and economic processes which Marx so much emphasized. The conceptions of the concentration of capital, of proletarization, etc., are given up. On the contrary, Socialism is to be prepared by the “revolutionary apprenticeship” of the working-class, an apprenticeship to be made in action and under the influence of a “social myth” created by imagination spurred on by the subconscious will. There certainly are pronounced voluntaristic elements in Marx, but this whole conception of M. Sorel seems to attribute to Marx a “spirit” by no means in harmony with his make-up.

Though claiming to be a disciple of Marx, M. Sorel seems to be more in harmony with Proudhon whose works he often quotes and whose views, particularly on morals, he accepts. But besides Proudhon many other writers have had a considerable influence on M. Sorel. Besides Bergson, already mentioned, Renan and Nietzsche, to quote but two, have had their share of influence in many of the ideas expressed by M. Sorel. M. Sorel has an essentially mobile mind quick to catch an idea and to give it a somewhat new and original turn. He lacks the ability of systematizing his views and his reader must have considerable patience with him. The systematic way in which his views have been given in this chapter is rather misleading; M. Sorel himself proceeds in a quite different way; he deals with an idea for a while but is led away into digression after digression, to pick up the thread of his previous argument tens of pages later.

Lack of system makes it easier for contradictions to live together without detection. It also predisposes a writer to assimilate and to transform any ideas he may meet. With Sorel this is evidently so, though his main claim is “profundity.” The pages of his work bristle with the word approfondir which is so often repeated that it makes the poor reader dizzy. The disappointment is sharp, because M. Sorel soon loses the thread of his thought before having had time to fathom his subject. His works, however, savor of freshness of thought and of originality.

Quite a different writer is M. Lagardelle. His exposition is regular, systematic, fluent, and clear. While Sorel is mainly interested in the philosophical aspect of his problems and has been called, probably sarcastically, by M. JaurÈs “the metaphysician of revolutionary syndicalism,” M. Lagardelle considers the economic and political aspects of the new doctrine. His works need not be dwelt upon because his ideas do not differ essentially from those of M. Sorel. Two points, however, may be singled out; M. Lagardelle, though criticizing democracy, is careful to point out that Socialism has been made possible by democracy and that no return to ancient political forms is desired; secondly, he allows a place for the political [socialist] party in the general social system; its rÔle is to attend to those problems which are not entirely included within the domain of industrial activities.[175]

While the “Mouvement Socialiste” devoted its attention mainly to the philosophical and sociological aspects of syndicalism, the weekly La Guerre Sociale took up questions of policy and method, particularly the questions of anti-militarism and anti-patriotism. Gustave HervÉ, the editor of the paper, attracted widespread attention by his attacks on the army and on the idea of patriotism, and became the enfant terrible of the French socialist movement because of his violent utterances on these questions. On other questions of method, M. HervÉ was no less violent being a disciple of the Blanquists who believed in the efficacy of all revolutionary methods including the general strike. However, the theoretical contributions of M. HervÉ to the philosophy of the movement are slight.

Now, what are the relations of the two groups of writers described in this chapter and what part has each played in the history of the movement? These questions must be carefully considered if a correct understanding of revolutionary syndicalism is desired.

The view which prevailed outside of France is that M. Sorel and his disciples “created” the theory of revolutionary socialism in opposition to the parliamentary socialists, and that they have been able to impress their ideas upon a larger or smaller portion of the organized French workingmen. This view was first presented by Professor W. Sombart in his well-known work on Socialism and the Social Movement, and has made its way into other writings on revolutionary syndicalism. M. Sorel is often spoken of as the “leader” of the revolutionary syndicalists, and the whole movement is regarded as a form of Marxian revisionism.

This view, however, is a “myth” and should be discarded. French writers who have studied the social movement of their country and who are competent judges have tried to dispel the error that has gotten abroad.[176] The theorists of the Mouvement Socialiste themselves have repeatedly declined the “honor” which error has conferred upon them. M. Lagardelle has reiterated time and again that revolutionary syndicalism was born of the experience of the labor movement and worked out by the workingmen themselves. M. Sorel has said that he learned more from the syndicalist workingmen than they could learn from him. And in an article reviewing the book of Professor Sombart, M. Berth has insisted that Professor Sombart was in error. “If we had any part,” wrote he, “it was the simple part of interpreters, of translators, of glossers; we have served as spokesmen, that's all; but it is necessary to avoid reducing to a few propositions of a school, a movement which is so essentially working-class and the leading ideas of which, such as direct action and the general strike, are so specifically of a working-class character.”[177]

This must not be taken as over-modesty on the part of “intellectuals” who are careful not to pose as leaders or as inspirers. The facts are there to prove the statements of M. Lagardelle and of M. Sorel. The idea of the general strike was elaborated by workingmen-members of the various committees on the general strike. The idea of “direct action,” as has been shown, found its defenders in the first Congresses of the General Confederation of Labor. The theory of the social rÔle of the syndicat was formulated by Pelloutier and by other members of the “Federation of Bourses” before M. Sorel wrote his little book on The Socialist Future of the Syndicats.

Even the statement of M. Berth must be somewhat modified. The theorists of the Mouvement Socialiste have never by any means been the authorized “spokesmen” of the revolutionary syndicalists of the General Confederation. They were no more than a group of writers who, watching the syndicalist movement from the outside, were stimulated by it to their reflections and ideas. They thought they found in the syndicalist movement “a truly original force capable of refreshing the socialist conception”, and they formulated their ideas on the subject. They never took any part in the movement, and could not feel themselves its representatives.

What then was their influence? In general, the same as that of other socialist writers. They were and are read by the French workingmen just as Kropotkin, JaurÈs, Proudhon and other contemporary or former socialist and anarchist writers, and as many non-socialist writers are. Naturally, some workingmen came more under their influence, than under that of others; and such workingmen may be disposed to look upon them as their theoretical guides and leaders.

But even the latter interpretation is by no means applicable to all the theories of M. Sorel, for the main ideas of Sorel seem fundamentally incapable of inspiring a movement of large masses. The theory of the “social myth” may be original and attractive, but if accepted by the workingmen could not inspire them to action. If “images of battles” are important for the “rising classes” as an impelling force, they can be so only so long as they are naÏvely and fully believed in. The worm of reflection must not touch them. The “men longing for deliverance” must believe that the future will be just as they picture it, otherwise their enthusiasm for these pictures would find no nourishment. Should they come to realize the “utopian” and “mythical” character of their constructions they would abandon them.

The pessimistic basis of M. Sorel's Weltanschauung may appeal to literary men, to students of philosophy and to individuals longing for a moral theory. It can not be assimilated by a mass “moving toward emancipation.” When one reads the original documents of the syndicalist movement, he is struck, on the contrary, by the powerful torrent of optimism by which the movement is carried along. Only a strong belief in a “speedy emancipation” created the enthusiasm for the idea of the general strike. There may be a subconscious pessimism back of this optimism, but its appearance in the field of clear consciousness would have been destructive for the movement. It is, therefore, quite natural that the writers representing the General Confederation of Labor who address the workingmen directly do not reproduce these theories of M. Sorel. As has been indicated already, their writings bear a different stamp. And if among these writers some, as for instance M. Griffuelhes, seem to have come more under the influence of the group Le Mouvement Socialiste, the rest occupy an independent position even from the theoretical point of view.

How little M. Sorel could have been the “leader” of the revolutionary syndicalist movement may be illustrated by the following comparison. At the Congress of Lyons in 1901 the secretary of the General Confederation of Labor, M. GuÉrard, wrote, as we have seen, that the Confederation is destined to transform society. In the same year, M. Sorel, in his preface to Pelloutier's Histoire des Bourses du Travail, wrote: “The Confederation of Labor appears to me to be destined to become an officious Council of Labor, and an academy of proletarian ideas, which will present its wishes to the government, as the large agricultural societies do.” The history of the General Confederation of Labor since 1902, to be considered in the following chapter, will show that M. Sorel missed the point too far to be able to claim the title of “leader” whose function, presumably, is to point out the way and not to acknowledge it, after it has once been taken.

It is necessary to bear all this in mind in order to grasp the real character of revolutionary syndicalism. M. Sorel has recently renounced his revolutionary syndicalist ideas. In December, 1910, he wrote to the Italian revolutionary syndicalists who invited him to their Congress at Boulogne:

It seems to the author [of the Reflections on Violence] that syndicalism has not realized what was expected from it. Many hope that the future will correct the evils of the present hour; but the author feels himself too old to live in distant hopes; and he has decided to employ the remaining years of his life in the deepening (approfondir) of other questions which keenly interest the cultivated youth of France.[178]

Previous to that, M. Sorel and M. Berth had both promised collaboration in a so-called neo-monarchist monthly, La CitÉ FranÇaise, which, however, did not see the light. This probably seemed to them natural in view of their opposition to democracy. But under the political conditions of France such an act could not but shock the workingmen who may criticise democracy but who are bitterly opposed to everything connected with the ancien rÉgime. This act of M. Sorel and M. Berth weakened the group of Le Mouvement Socialiste which, however, is still published by M. Lagardelle, though with less force and Éclat than before. The act of M. Sorel, however, could have no perceptible significance for the revolutionary syndicalist movement. The latter is led by other leaders and is determined in its march by other influences.

The revolutionary syndicalist ideas embodied in the movement represented by the General Confederation of Labor were evolved, as has been shown, in the syndicalist organizations of France. The Anarchists entering the syndicats largely contributed to the revolutionary turn which the syndicats took. Their influence, hailed by some, deplored by others, is recognized by all. The Anarchists themselves often speak as if they “created” the entire movement, though this is an exaggeration. The rÔle of the Allemanists has been considerable, as was shown in the preceding chapters. And the more definite formulation of revolutionary syndicalist ideas in the period of “Millerandism” was the work of revolutionary socialist workingmen of all brands—Allemanists, Anarchists, Blanquists and others.

This clears up the question of the relation of revolutionary syndicalism to other social theories. The theorists of the Mouvement Socialiste have proclaimed revolutionary syndicalism as a new social theory. They have been very persistent in trying to delimit their theoretical dominion from parliamentary socialism on the one hand, and from Anarchism on the other. From the latter particularly they wished to be separated, feeling as they did how dangerously close they came to it. Many workingmen have accepted this view, proud to proclaim that they have evolved a theory of their own—the theory of the working-class.

Others, however, have taken the correct point of view. They see that the main ideas of revolutionary syndicalism cannot be said to be new. They may all be found in the old “International Association of Workingmen,” and especially in the writings of the Bakounist or federalist wing of that Association. If not the terms, the ideas on direct action, on the general strike, on the social rÔle of the syndicat, and on the future “economic federalism” may all be found there more or less clearly stated.[179]

Revolutionary syndicalism appears then, from this point of view not as a new theory, but as a return to the old theories of the “International” in which the combined influence of Proudhon, Marx and Bakounin manifested itself. The formulation of revolutionary syndicalism, however, is not to any great degree a conscious return to old ideas, though this conscious factor had its part; Pelloutier, for instance, was expressly guided by the conceptions of Proudhon and Bakounin. References to the “International” are also frequent in the discussions of the Congresses of the General Confederation. The more important factors, however, were the conditions of the French syndical movement itself. The workingmen of different socialist groups meeting on the common ground of the syndicat had to attenuate their differences and to emphasize their common points. Thus, by a process of elimination and of mutual influence a common stock of ideas was elaborated which, absorbing the quintessence of all socialist theories, became what is known as revolutionary syndicalism. Its similarity to the ideas of the “International” is partly due to the fact that in the “International” similar conditions existed.

Mainly worked out in the practice of the syndicalist movement, the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism are also mainly determined in their further evolution by this practice. The ideas, therefore, must be judged in connection with the conditions in which they developed. These conditions will be further described in the following chapters.