On the Theoretical and Economic Foundations of Syndicalism (1926)¹

I.

By “syndicalism” we mean the trade union theory that advocates “revolutionary direct action” by the working masses to transform economic and social conditions. In its worldview and economic outlook, this theory stands in contrast to parliamentary reformism, which, under the influence of the social democratic parties, actually dominates the modern labor movement.

In attempting here to outline the theoretical and economic foundations of this revolutionary movement and to explain its emergence as a consequence of the principles that have dominated the struggles of workers and proletarians for a century, we do not wish to dwell on the historical beginnings of the movement or the various factors that have favored its development in the struggle with other party and trade union organizations.²

We will focus primarily on the theoretical side of our problem and, in order to illuminate it, we will select examples and facts from the last few years of the movement that reflect the current state of development as faithfully as possible.

However, we would like to point out right away that the war and postwar periods have indeed confused the syndicalist issues, and that it will therefore be necessary on several occasions to refer back to the period before the World War in order to present them clearly and unambiguously.

We do not mean to say that the revolutionary syndicalist movement has made no progress since the war. The movement is young; the first revolutionary international syndicalist congress took place in London in 1913, but it is only in the last few months that this movement has acquired, so to speak, an international headquarters, the International Workers' Association (IWA), based in Berlin.³

Our reservations are explained from the outset by the fact that the war itself and the state into which it plunged the labor movement and the political parties changed ideas and disoriented minds. It is “Bolshevism,” especially the propaganda of the “Third International” in Moscow, that has completely shifted the situation from the standpoint of principles.

In the syndicalist movement, which in France is embodied by the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire (C.G.T.U.), i.e., in the movement guided by “Bolshevik” principles, we know of several influential leaders who, in the past, would have found nothing more degrading in the syndicalist movement than its domination by a political party. Having been recognized representatives of what was called “self-sufficient syndicalism” in France before the war, have these leaders literally ended up “burning what they worshipped and worshipping what they burned”? Similarly, the English propagandist Tom Mann⁴, who did who knows what to introduce revolutionary syndicalism first in Australia and then in England itself, has now become the most important leader of “Bolshevism” in London. And yet, from our explanation of the fundamental principles of the syndicalist movement, it will be seen that the independence of this movement in relation to any political party is rooted in the basis of its existence.

Revolutionary syndicalism arose in fact as a reaction against the development that the international labor movement had undergone since the founding of the International in 1864 and after the brief struggle between the “Bakuninists” and the “Marxists” within it. While the minority of the movement lost itself in vague anarchist and individualist thinking that was too far removed from real life, the majority fell into the mire of parliamentary and bureaucratic reformism.

I am familiar with the beginnings of the young revolutionary syndicalist movement in all these details. Even before the end of the last century, I worked with men like Fernand Pelloutier to lay the foundations of this movement. At almost the same time, we saw the emergence of the Confédération Générale du Travail in France (1894) and the Nationaal Arbeids-Sekretariaat in Holland (1893). Moreover, we had to conclude everywhere that syndicalism was bound to arise, by virtue of the fundamental principles of every workers' movement and consequently by virtue of all the inconsistencies of which, from the standpoint of these principles, the reformist parties that dominated the first workers' unions were guilty.

On the one hand, the International of 1864 adopted as a sine qua non principle “that the emancipation of the workers could only be the work of the workers themselves,”⁵ a principle that was intended to realize the tendencies toward autonomy of local unions vis-à-vis their central organization and to guarantee the independence of the national and international movement with regard to politicians.

On the other hand, the vast majority of socialists, a majority that had emerged from the internal struggles of the old International, declared themselves to be adherents of the materialist conception of history, in accordance with the theories of the mid-19th century, whose purest representative was Karl Marx. Marx himself believed that “the specific mode of production and the relations of production corresponding to it, in short, the economic structure of society, is the real basis on which a legal and political superstructure arises and which corresponds to specific forms of social consciousness, that the mode of production of material life determines the social, political, and intellectual life process in general”⁶.

We do not need to examine these old materialistic concepts in greater detail here. If Marx had studied the natural sciences more closely, would his theories have been as narrow and one-sided as they appear to us today? (This remark comes from Peter Kropotkin.) In that case, could Marx have compared human society, in its development resembling that of a living organism, to a kind of structure on whose foundations a legal and political “superstructure” rises?

Let us leave these old concepts aside! We do not even want to discuss the question of whether Marx, if he had relied on these overly narrow materialistic theories, could have justified modern parliamentary politics, which amounts to the “conquest of state power,” a policy that his disciples in Germany and elsewhere have been pursuing for several decades.

Be that as it may, it is important for us here to note that the contradictions between parliamentary politics and the old materialist principles were bound to manifest themselves in the socialist and syndicalist press and at public meetings. As daily life pushed socialist and syndicalist workers further and further down the path of parliamentary reformism, the reaction against the futility of these “palliative measures” became increasingly apparent in revolutionary worker circles. For their part, they quoted the materialistic theories of the grand master Marx when they wanted to prove the inevitable necessity of overthrowing capitalist society in its economic foundations, gladly disregarding any parliamentary action.

On this point, we must even point out that the criticism of revolutionary syndicalists today does not stop at the actions of the Social Democrats and the reformist trade unions, but is equally directed against the “Bolsheviks” and their “state communism,” which leads to the “state socialism” or “state capitalism” that has developed in Soviet Russia. Throughout Central and Western Europe, there is a clear contradiction between the materialistic ideas of these supposed “communists,”⁷ who have their sights set on overthrowing the economic foundations of society, and the fact that these same ‘communists’ are devoting their most active attention and spending considerable sums of money on maintaining the struggle in the “bourgeois” parliaments. Certainly, their actions in the legislative bodies have the character of opposition, but this opposition to the bourgeois parties is by no means regarded as being of secondary importance. On the contrary, it has become the focal point of their entire social action.

“You are parliamentarians like the others,” the syndicalists say to them; “each of you, in addressing the bourgeois government, is guided by the idea: ‘Remove yourself so that I can take your place.’” And the same syndicalists accuse the “red” Moscow trade unions of being no different from the reformist trade union headquarters in Amsterdam, since both are influenced and guided by politicians.

With true passion, modern revolutionary syndicalists discuss the fact that the workers' right to strike in Russia is being suppressed under the pretext that the Russian state has become “proletarian.” Not without deep bitterness, they criticize the suppression of all freedom of the press, as well as all freedom of assembly and association in Russia. “You are worse than the bourgeoisie!” the revolutionary syndicalists accuse the state syndicalists of Moscow. “Your workers' unions are not real unions because they are not independent of the government.” From this point of view, modern syndicalist theory can be formulated as follows: regardless of whether the state is proletarian or bourgeois, it must not interfere in the internal organization of workers' unions and must respect all acquired rights. In this respect, the syndicalists defend the rights of the workers almost as the clergy of the Middle Ages defended their freedom of action against the interference of emperors and kings, even if they were the best Christians: Quid est Imperatori cum Ecclesia?⁸

It is also noteworthy that, while syndicalists defend the autonomy of the syndicalist movement against any interference on the part of the state and declare themselves to be “anti-state” and “anti-parliamentary,” they do not base their objections solely on the disappointments caused by state socialism (governmentarianism) and parliamentarianism in the labor movement.

They refer to the history of humanity and emphasize the fact that all great historical movements have developed in the real lives of people without the intervention of the state; that Christianity, for example, during the first centuries of our era, made its way in much the same way as the modern emancipation movement of the workers: without the help of the ruling authorities and mostly against their will. Similarly, in our time, powerful scientific, artistic, social, and religious creations have emerged and made progress without regard for secular or spiritual authorities: the cooperative movement, the Salvation Army, theosophy, the Esperanto movement, the Red Cross, international scientific congresses, Masonic lodges, and the freethinker movement, etc.

However, this does not mean that revolutionary syndicalists are indifferent to the attitude of the state; they are no more indifferent than the other political-social, socio-religious, or scientific groups to which we alluded.

The materialism of modern syndicalists is no longer that of Karl Marx's time. While in the battle of opinions and discussions between “materialists” and “idealists,” the latter have come to recognize the considerable influence that material needs exert on the development of ideas, while the materialists, for their part, have had to pay more attention than before to the repercussions that legal, political, artistic, intellectual, and moral factors have on the material life of peoples.

Syndicalists therefore recognize the beneficial influence that good laws can have, as well as the harmful influence that bad laws can have. They recognize these influences both for social life in general and for the syndicalist and labor movements in particular.

But they consider it their duty to fight the bad laws introduced in present-day society not in parliament, but outside it, in free social life. They are also happy to lend their support to any good law, such as international legislation on the eight-hour working day, but they do so in everyday life and through direct action in factories and workshops.

It would go beyond the scope of this study to discuss all the reasons why modern syndicalists choose to stop at the doors of legislative and governing bodies without attempting to enter them. At the end of our introduction to the ideological motives underlying the emergence of the syndicalist movement, we would simply like to note that this movement has been tempered by the experiences of half a century of struggle for the emancipation of the working masses and has become particularly practical. ⁹

II.

The opposition of workers to the capitalist economic order is as old as the order itself and has its origins in the antagonism that exists between the worker and his means of production, since he is separated from the latter by the technical development of production.

Since the emergence of large-scale industry, since the moment when the vast majority of workers could no longer hope to one day attain the position of master craftsman, but instead saw themselves condemned to wage labor for their entire lives, they began to unite and develop their organizations in one industry after another—first in the large centers, and then in the smaller industrial towns and villages.

When capitalist enterprises began to transform themselves into joint-stock companies, workers were in the process of forming national and regional trade union associations. When employers in numerous industries abandoned free and unrestricted competition in order to gradually form their various associations and cartels, workers, for their part, laid the foundation for associations between the organizations of different industries. And now that the big capitalists are joining hands across national borders and their cartels and trusts are increasingly developing into international monopolistic coalitions, workers have entered a stage that can be called the era of the workers' international.

In any struggles between capital and labor, workers undoubtedly have the power of numbers and the indispensability of their productive labor in their favor; but they still lack the experience and technical knowledge necessary to run the industries themselves. In this respect, they are dependent on the capital owners and the actual managers of the enterprises. If they had the opportunity to run a large industrial, commercial, or transport enterprise at their own risk and for their own benefit, the masses of workers and their leaders would hardly be capable of doing so.

However, the opportunity for a capitalist to hand over his enterprise to his staff or to workers' organizations is rare. As far as the question of setting up competing enterprises against those of the united capitalists is concerned, the workers are usually faced with a fait accompli¹⁰, since the positions have already been taken by stronger and more skilled competitors. In fact, it is just as impossible for organized workers to establish a modern steel mill alongside the cartels and trusts as it is for them to build a new railway line from Paris to Marseille in competition with the P.L.M. Consequently, in the dominant industries, victories in the class struggle must be won by each party within the capitalist enterprises. And wherever the struggle can be won by the workers—whether in a violent revolutionary form or in the peaceful form of progressive penetration—the workers' organizations should be able to defeat the individual entrepreneurs in their own enterprises.

In this struggle within capitalist factories, workshops, and warehouses, entrepreneurs rely on their right to dispose of their private property and on the plight of the non-proprietors in the current social order, who must sell their labor or fall into misery. The workers, on the other hand, base their confidence on the social pressure they are able to exert by temporarily and by mutual agreement withdrawing their labor from production.

The class struggle that develops with industrial technology thus goes through various stages: initial skirmishes and disorderly revolts to maintain or improve working conditions or to abolish the most egregious abuses; local and national struggles organized by the workers to establish a direct relationship between working conditions and the selling prices of products, either in an indefinite form or clearly and categorically in the form of sliding scales or other agreements; finally, direct interference by workers' organizations in the management of capitalist enterprises.

In all the stages mentioned here, and since its emergence, the class struggle has already taken on the character of a struggle for the management of capitalist enterprises and for the question of who should determine the conditions of work: those who own the enterprise or those who work there. The struggle may be latent and hidden under all kinds of negotiations between employers and employees.¹¹

With regard to the future of industries, it is precisely the last stage of the struggle that demands our attention. Certainly, the most revolutionary syndicalist will not remain inactive in the other two stages of the struggle, even in the simplest struggle concerning wages or working hours. But activity in this direction will not prevent him from directing his best energies toward the formation of a new social order, where production will take place under the direct control of workers' associations.

In the most democratically advanced countries, including England, a kind of syndicalist socialism has developed in recent years that advocates the involvement of workers in the management of the factories, workshops, and warehouses where they work. This practical syndicalist socialism of the English “National Guilds” has clearly been influenced by the organizational and revolutionary syndicalism that preceded it.¹² In England, socialist syndicalism has been propagated since its emergence in 1912 by the magazine New Age.

Strengthened by the experiences of the war, the National Guilds movement has become more focused in its external development: the movement is pushing for foremen and supervisors in factories and workshops to be appointed and paid by the workers in future and to belong to the latter's trade union; it sees the “shop steward” and the “trade union works committee” as the seeds of an organization capable of ensuring supervision of production in the workshop; In view of the chaotic state that still prevails in syndicalist circles, it prefers the creation of trade union associations based on industries rather than on craft trades.

Finally, the National Guildsmen continue to demand the “nationalization of industries”; at the same time, however, they strive to “establish industrial democracy by placing management in the hands of the workers and, at the same time, eliminating profit by placing ownership in the hands of the community.” ¹³

As little as Marxist social democracy corresponded to English sentiments—as can still be seen today in the limited progress made by Bolshevik propaganda among English workers—the doctrine propagating “direct action” by workers has proven to be understandable to workers organized in trade unions. Its propaganda has benefited particularly from the general strikes of 1911 and 1913 (in the transport industry and among miners) and from all those other cases where workers experienced bitter disappointment due to broken promises, even by labor politicians. It was also apparent that the new ideas were best received in those circles where the great strikes of 1911-1913 had been organized, among the young organized miners of Wales and in the transport industries: railway workers, dockworkers, etc.

The conquest of the main branches of industry by the workers is presented in a more precise sense in syndicalist theories than in the old anarchist theories, which were always very vague, or in the parliamentary socialist doctrines, which, whether unconsciously or not, tend toward state capitalism, even in the form that the Russian Bolsheviks have given to this conquest under the banner of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The tactic, which envisages the “elimination of the employer,” leaves no room for doubt and lacks nothing in clarity.

Likewise, this removal can no longer be confused with the nationalization of mines, factories, and workshops in the sense of their transformation into public enterprises.

What modern syndicalists strive to achieve is what has been called “industrial democracy.”

In the theories of class struggle as they understand them, it is no longer just a matter of the continuous improvement of working conditions aimed at improving wage labor, which is always put forward; on the contrary, it is a matter of attacking entrepreneurial profit, conquering factories and workshops, even at the cost of a temporary reduction in profits.

The conquest of industry by the workers, understood in this way, does not take place overnight, however energetic the propaganda on the part of the workers may be. The proponents of the new doctrine have no illusions in this regard.

We must point out, however, that in the last months before the war and even during the war, English workers achieved some practical victories: Various large companies have preferred agreement with their staff on the principle of employee participation in management to incessant open conflict. These practical victories have contributed more to the development of modern doctrines than several years of theoretical propaganda could have done. The most advanced workers are tired of industrial feudalism.¹⁴

On the other hand, because the events of the war have accustomed the population to a general supervision of industry that was previously unknown, the ideas of nationalization of large enterprises and, at the same time, of worker participation in their management have become more prominent everywhere and have made their way into public opinion. In England, the progress made by these ideas has even been reflected in official reports.¹⁵

In the English coal industry, which we take as a typical example, an official commission had completed its task in mid-March of investigating the economic situation and the labor disputes that had broken out. Several of the witnesses heard by the Coal Commission had made such revelations about the profits made by the owners in the midst of the war that they aroused genuine anger in the country and provided powerful support for the workers' cause. ¹⁶ Public opinion found its echo in the official report (the Sankey Report), which went so far as to categorically condemn the existing system of ownership and exploitation. ¹⁷

The movement in favor of involving workers in the management of the enterprises in which they work is noticeably supported by the transformation of large capitalist enterprises into joint-stock companies, in which the real owners hardly manage their companies themselves anymore.

We know how little the small, isolated shareholder actually still owns of the mines, factories, workshops, or warehouses of which they are “owners,” and how often capitalist enterprises, while granting their numerous owners a certain interest on the money they have lent, work primarily for the benefit of the members of the supervisory board or the banks that have provided them with money.

Since the direct interests of small shareholders are so obviously sacrificed in numerous industrial and commercial enterprises, this explains the sympathy that representatives of workers' organizations have found in recent years. After acquiring shares in various of these companies, they appeared at their general meetings to criticize the administrative officials and directors. Since they dealt primarily with the issue of wages, they also endeavored to discuss all problems from the standpoint of shareholders whose interests had been violated. In a word, this is the same policy of peaceful penetration into capitalist enterprises that was mentioned above.

This policy of penetration is only just beginning to be applied, but it may play an important role in the future.¹⁸

From a theoretical point of view, propaganda in favor of this policy is most advanced in Germany, where the trade union press began discussing the need for joint, methodical action by the various trade union associations several years before the war.¹⁹

When one examines the trends toward the “democratization” of industries and the intervention of workers' organizations in the technical management of companies in all its forms, one notices that these are truly international efforts that are geared toward the specific character of the working population.

Whatever one may think of the practical solution to the problem in question, it cannot be denied that the entry of workers' representatives into the general meetings of joint-stock companies represents a social advance that clearly highlights the growing power of the modern labor movement.

For this to be the case, however, the policy of peaceful penetration referred to here must be used by workers as a weapon in the class struggle. This policy should not be confused with the approach taken by individual capitalist companies that grant their employees shares in their company, distribute other bonuses, or give their employees a share in the profits in order to show their goodwill and bind them to their companies.

When used for the latter purpose, the various bonus, gratuity, profit-sharing, and partnership systems in companies must be regarded as a gesture toward wage earners that are not intended and not suitable for truly preparing organized workers for the management of companies.

A classic example: the steel trust attacked by the American government defended itself in 1912 with a document stating that among the registered owners of the trust's share capital were “more than 22,000 of its employees” and that “8,000 other employees” were also subscribers to shares.

However, at that time, nowhere in American industry was the oppression of workers under the rule of capital more severe and categorical than in the factories and workshops of the powerful Steel Corporation.

The inquiry conducted in 1912 by the parliamentary commission, chaired by Mr. A. O. Stanley of Kentucky, into the founding, historical development, and internal organization of the U. S. Steel Corporation informed the astonished world that the American iron and steel industry was characterized by extraordinarily long working days and relatively low wages (compared to the high cost of living in the United States). This inquiry showed that this was particularly true of the large category of unskilled workers, whose numbers had increased, especially since 1895 (as a result of the introduction of a huge amount of machinery), and who were recruited predominantly from immigrants from the four corners of the globe.[^20

From the point of view of the working class's struggle for liberation, state intervention in favor of workers' participation in the profits of the companies in which they work could hardly be more significant than the “gifts” of employers.

The situation is different when it comes to their participation in the management of companies. Here, the state could intervene energetically, but—and here we see the revolutionary syndicalist theses again—in capitalist society, one can expect nothing else from the state than that it acts as a tool of public government, which the ruling classes use in their own interests. Until now, legislative measures in favor of what is called “worker supervision” in large industrial enterprises have always remained halfway.²¹

The class struggle is developing and transforming itself under the influence of today's shift in the balance of power, but protectionism and philanthropy always play only a subordinate and insignificant role in its manifestation.

However, the two efforts at peaceful penetration mentioned here can contribute a little to the democratization of industrial ownership, and from this point of view they are interesting.

From the same standpoint, one must evaluate all attempts at class cooperation in social production, such as the Gemeinwirtschaftliche Anstalten (public utility institutions) founded in Austria after the war under the influence of the Social Democratic Party.

The members of the general assemblies of these enterprises include representatives of the Austrian government, workers' organizations, employees, and customers, the latter being represented by the large warehouses of the consumer cooperatives.²²

All these attempts at class cooperation and the peaceful integration of workers into production are not enough to satisfy the aspirations of modern revolutionary syndicalists. Not only does it seem to them that the work of liberating the workers is progressing too slowly; on the contrary, we have already pointed out that even the most cautious among them readily admit that the workers of today cannot suddenly and completely take over the overall management of all industries. But revolutionary syndicalists claim that under the current social order, attempts at class cooperation and the peaceful intrusion of workers into production will always be paralyzed and dependent on the mercy of a few big businessmen and high finance.

To achieve the ultimate goal, they say, it is first necessary for the social revolution to make a clean sweep of centuries-old property institutions. Before the great Russian Revolution of February 1917, Russian revolutionaries of various shades assured us that any attempt to introduce reforms in their country would be doomed to failure until the old, already too rotten government had been overthrown.

According to the syndicalists, capitalist feudalism is destined to break down in the countries of ancient civilization and gradually, but not without tremendous upheavals, transform itself into an industrial democracy. The boldest individual entrepreneurs, who do not want to be in the same social conditions in the service of labor as labor was formerly in the service of the capitalists, will still find the opportunity to take the initiative and assume the great responsibility and heavy risk of organizing new industries and the social life of less civilized countries.

It is undeniable that the existence of a social theory based on the necessity of a great transformation of the economic conditions of our society and assuming that all partial attempts to prepare wage workers for their future task should remain subordinate to this will take on great significance.

Whatever may happen, it will exert enormous pressure on all major historical events in the period of social and political struggles that has dawned in our countries of ancient civilization since the World War.

On the Theoretical and Economic Foundations of Syndicalism (1926)¹

I.

By “syndicalism” we mean the trade union theory that advocates “revolutionary direct action” by the working masses to transform economic and social conditions. In its worldview and economic outlook, this theory stands in contrast to parliamentary reformism, which, under the influence of the social democratic parties, actually dominates the modern labor movement.

In attempting here to outline the theoretical and economic foundations of this revolutionary movement and to explain its emergence as a consequence of the principles that have dominated the struggles of workers and proletarians for a century, we do not wish to dwell on the historical beginnings of the movement or the various factors that have favored its development in the struggle with other party and trade union organizations.²

We will focus primarily on the theoretical side of our problem and, in order to illuminate it, we will select examples and facts from the last few years of the movement that reflect the current state of development as faithfully as possible.

However, we would like to point out right away that the war and postwar periods have indeed confused the syndicalist issues, and that it will therefore be necessary on several occasions to refer back to the period before the World War in order to present them clearly and unambiguously.

We do not mean to say that the revolutionary syndicalist movement has made no progress since the war. The movement is young; the first revolutionary international syndicalist congress took place in London in 1913, but it is only in the last few months that this movement has acquired, so to speak, an international headquarters, the International Workers' Association (IWA), based in Berlin.

Our reservations are explained from the outset by the fact that the war itself and the state into which it plunged the labor movement and the political parties changed ideas and disoriented minds. It is “Bolshevism,” especially the propaganda of the “Third International” in Moscow, that has completely shifted the situation from the standpoint of principles.

In the syndicalist movement, which in France is embodied by the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire (C.G.T.U.), i.e., in the movement guided by “Bolshevik” principles, we know of several influential leaders who, in the past, would have found nothing more degrading in the syndicalist movement than its domination by a political party. Having been recognized representatives of what was called “self-sufficient syndicalism” in France before the war, have these leaders literally ended up “burning what they worshipped and worshipping what they burned”? Similarly, the English propagandist Tom Mann, who did who knows what to introduce revolutionary syndicalism first in Australia and then in England itself, has now become the most important leader of “Bolshevism” in London. And yet, from our explanation of the fundamental principles of the syndicalist movement, it will be seen that the independence of this movement in relation to any political party is rooted in the basis of its existence.

Revolutionary syndicalism arose in fact as a reaction against the development that the international labor movement had undergone since the founding of the International in 1864 and after the brief struggle between the “Bakuninists” and the “Marxists” within it. While the minority of the movement lost itself in vague anarchist and individualist thinking that was too far removed from real life, the majority fell into the mire of parliamentary and bureaucratic reformism.

I am familiar with the beginnings of the young revolutionary syndicalist movement in all these details. Even before the end of the last century, I worked with men like Fernand Pelloutier to lay the foundations of this movement. At almost the same time, we saw the emergence of the Confédération Générale du Travail in France (1894) and the Nationaal Arbeids-Sekretariaat in Holland (1893). Moreover, we had to conclude everywhere that syndicalism was bound to arise, by virtue of the fundamental principles of every workers' movement and consequently by virtue of all the inconsistencies of which, from the standpoint of these principles, the reformist parties that dominated the first workers' unions were guilty.

On the one hand, the International of 1864 adopted as a sine qua non principle “that the emancipation of the workers could only be the work of the workers themselves,” a principle that was intended to realize the tendencies toward autonomy of local unions vis-à-vis their central organization and to guarantee the independence of the national and international movement with regard to politicians.

On the other hand, the vast majority of socialists, a majority that had emerged from the internal struggles of the old International, declared themselves to be adherents of the materialist conception of history, in accordance with the theories of the mid-19th century, whose purest representative was Karl Marx. Marx himself believed that “the specific mode of production and the relations of production corresponding to it, in short, the economic structure of society, is the real basis on which a legal and political superstructure arises and which corresponds to specific forms of social consciousness, that the mode of production of material life determines the social, political, and intellectual life process in general”⁶.

We do not need to examine these old materialistic concepts in greater detail here. If Marx had studied the natural sciences more closely, would his theories have been as narrow and one-sided as they appear to us today? (This remark comes from Peter Kropotkin.) In that case, could Marx have compared human society, in its development resembling that of a living organism, to a kind of structure on whose foundations a legal and political “superstructure” rises?

Let us leave these old concepts aside! We do not even want to discuss the question of whether Marx, if he had relied on these overly narrow materialistic theories, could have justified modern parliamentary politics, which amounts to the “conquest of state power,” a policy that his disciples in Germany and elsewhere have been pursuing for several decades.

Be that as it may, it is important for us here to note that the contradictions between parliamentary politics and the old materialist principles were bound to manifest themselves in the socialist and syndicalist press and at public meetings. As daily life pushed socialist and syndicalist workers further and further down the path of parliamentary reformism, the reaction against the futility of these “palliative measures” became increasingly apparent in revolutionary worker circles. For their part, they quoted the materialistic theories of the grand master Marx when they wanted to prove the inevitable necessity of overthrowing capitalist society in its economic foundations, gladly disregarding any parliamentary action.

On this point, we must even point out that the criticism of revolutionary syndicalists today does not stop at the actions of the Social Democrats and the reformist trade unions, but is equally directed against the “Bolsheviks” and their “state communism,” which leads to the “state socialism” or “state capitalism” that has developed in Soviet Russia. Throughout Central and Western Europe, there is a clear contradiction between the materialistic ideas of these supposed “communists,” who have their sights set on overthrowing the economic foundations of society, and the fact that these same ‘communists’ are devoting their most active attention and spending considerable sums of money on maintaining the struggle in the “bourgeois” parliaments. Certainly, their actions in the legislative bodies have the character of opposition, but this opposition to the bourgeois parties is by no means regarded as being of secondary importance. On the contrary, it has become the focal point of their entire social action.

“You are parliamentarians like the others,” the syndicalists say to them; “each of you, in addressing the bourgeois government, is guided by the idea: ‘Remove yourself so that I can take your place.’” And the same syndicalists accuse the “red” Moscow trade unions of being no different from the reformist trade union headquarters in Amsterdam, since both are influenced and guided by politicians.

With true passion, modern revolutionary syndicalists discuss the fact that the workers' right to strike in Russia is being suppressed under the pretext that the Russian state has become “proletarian.” Not without deep bitterness, they criticize the suppression of all freedom of the press, as well as all freedom of assembly and association in Russia. “You are worse than the bourgeoisie!” the revolutionary syndicalists accuse the state syndicalists of Moscow. “Your workers' unions are not real unions because they are not independent of the government.” From this point of view, modern syndicalist theory can be formulated as follows: regardless of whether the state is proletarian or bourgeois, it must not interfere in the internal organization of workers' unions and must respect all acquired rights. In this respect, the syndicalists defend the rights of the workers almost as the clergy of the Middle Ages defended their freedom of action against the interference of emperors and kings, even if they were the best Christians: Quid est Imperatori cum Ecclesia?⁸

It is also noteworthy that, while syndicalists defend the autonomy of the syndicalist movement against any interference on the part of the state and declare themselves to be “anti-state” and “anti-parliamentary,” they do not base their objections solely on the disappointments caused by state socialism (governmentarianism) and parliamentarianism in the labor movement.

They refer to the history of humanity and emphasize the fact that all great historical movements have developed in the real lives of people without the intervention of the state; that Christianity, for example, during the first centuries of our era, made its way in much the same way as the modern emancipation movement of the workers: without the help of the ruling authorities and mostly against their will. Similarly, in our time, powerful scientific, artistic, social, and religious creations have emerged and made progress without regard for secular or spiritual authorities: the cooperative movement, the Salvation Army, theosophy, the Esperanto movement, the Red Cross, international scientific congresses, Masonic lodges, and the freethinker movement, etc.

However, this does not mean that revolutionary syndicalists are indifferent to the attitude of the state; they are no more indifferent than the other political-social, socio-religious, or scientific groups to which we alluded.

The materialism of modern syndicalists is no longer that of Karl Marx's time. While in the battle of opinions and discussions between “materialists” and “idealists,” the latter have come to recognize the considerable influence that material needs exert on the development of ideas, while the materialists, for their part, have had to pay more attention than before to the repercussions that legal, political, artistic, intellectual, and moral factors have on the material life of peoples.

Syndicalists therefore recognize the beneficial influence that good laws can have, as well as the harmful influence that bad laws can have. They recognize these influences both for social life in general and for the syndicalist and labor movements in particular.

But they consider it their duty to fight the bad laws introduced in present-day society not in parliament, but outside it, in free social life. They are also happy to lend their support to any good law, such as international legislation on the eight-hour working day, but they do so in everyday life and through direct action in factories and workshops.

It would go beyond the scope of this study to discuss all the reasons why modern syndicalists choose to stop at the doors of legislative and governing bodies without attempting to enter them. At the end of our introduction to the ideological motives underlying the emergence of the syndicalist movement, we would simply like to note that this movement has been tempered by the experiences of half a century of struggle for the emancipation of the working masses and has become particularly practical. ⁹

II.

The opposition of workers to the capitalist economic order is as old as the order itself and has its origins in the antagonism that exists between the worker and his means of production, since he is separated from the latter by the technical development of production.

Since the emergence of large-scale industry, since the moment when the vast majority of workers could no longer hope to one day attain the position of master craftsman, but instead saw themselves condemned to wage labor for their entire lives, they began to unite and develop their organizations in one industry after another—first in the large centers, and then in the smaller industrial towns and villages.

When capitalist enterprises began to transform themselves into joint-stock companies, workers were in the process of forming national and regional trade union associations. When employers in numerous industries abandoned free and unrestricted competition in order to gradually form their various associations and cartels, workers, for their part, laid the foundation for associations between the organizations of different industries. And now that the big capitalists are joining hands across national borders and their cartels and trusts are increasingly developing into international monopolistic coalitions, workers have entered a stage that can be called the era of the workers' international.

In any struggles between capital and labor, workers undoubtedly have the power of numbers and the indispensability of their productive labor in their favor;
but they still lack the experience and technical knowledge necessary to run the industries themselves. In this respect, they are dependent on the capital owners and the actual managers of the enterprises. If they had the opportunity to run a large industrial, commercial, or transport enterprise at their own risk and for their own benefit, the masses of workers and their leaders would hardly be capable of doing so.

However, the opportunity for a capitalist to hand over his enterprise to his staff or to workers' organizations is rare. As far as the question of setting up competing enterprises against those of the united capitalists is concerned, the workers are usually faced with a fait accompli, since the positions have already been taken by stronger and more skilled competitors. In fact, it is just as impossible for organized workers to establish a modern steel mill alongside the cartels and trusts as it is for them to build a new railway line from Paris to Marseille in competition with the P.L.M. Consequently, in the dominant industries, victories in the class struggle must be won by each party within the capitalist enterprises. And wherever the struggle can be won by the workers—whether in a violent revolutionary form or in the peaceful form of progressive penetration—the workers' organizations should be able to defeat the individual entrepreneurs in their own enterprises.

In this struggle within capitalist factories, workshops, and warehouses, entrepreneurs rely on their right to dispose of their private property and on the plight of the non-proprietors in the current social order, who must sell their labor or fall into misery. The workers, on the other hand, base their confidence on the social pressure they are able to exert by temporarily and by mutual agreement withdrawing their labor from production.

The class struggle that develops with industrial technology thus goes through various stages: initial skirmishes and disorderly revolts to maintain or improve working conditions or to abolish the most egregious abuses; local and national struggles organized by the workers to establish a direct relationship between working conditions and the selling prices of products, either in an indefinite form or clearly and categorically in the form of sliding scales or other agreements; finally, direct interference by workers' organizations in the management of capitalist enterprises.

In all the stages mentioned here, and since its emergence, the class struggle has already taken on the character of a struggle for the management of capitalist enterprises and for the question of who should determine the conditions of work: those who own the enterprise or those who work there. The struggle may be latent and hidden under all kinds of negotiations between employers and employees.

With regard to the future of industries, it is precisely the last stage of the struggle that demands our attention. Certainly, the most revolutionary syndicalist will not remain inactive in the other two stages of the struggle, even in the simplest struggle concerning wages or working hours. But activity in this direction will not prevent him from directing his best energies toward the formation of a new social order, where production will take place under the direct control of workers' associations.

In the most democratically advanced countries, including England, a kind of syndicalist socialism has developed in recent years that advocates the involvement of workers in the management of the factories, workshops, and warehouses where they work. This practical syndicalist socialism of the English “National Guilds” has clearly been influenced by the organizational and revolutionary syndicalism that preceded it. In England, socialist syndicalism has been propagated since its emergence in 1912 by the magazine New Age.

Strengthened by the experiences of the war, the National Guilds movement has become more focused in its external development: the movement is pushing for foremen and supervisors in factories and workshops to be appointed and paid by the workers in future and to belong to the latter's trade union; it sees the “shop steward” and the “trade union works committee” as the seeds of an organization capable of ensuring supervision of production in the workshop; In view of the chaotic state that still prevails in syndicalist circles, it prefers the creation of trade union associations based on industries rather than on craft trades.

Finally, the National Guildsmen continue to demand the “nationalization of industries”; at the same time, however, they strive to “establish industrial democracy by placing management in the hands of the workers and, at the same time, eliminating profit by placing ownership in the hands of the community.” ¹³

As little as Marxist social democracy corresponded to English sentiments—as can still be seen today in the limited progress made by Bolshevik propaganda among English workers—the doctrine propagating “direct action” by workers has proven to be understandable to workers organized in trade unions. Its propaganda has benefited particularly from the general strikes of 1911 and 1913 (in the transport industry and among miners) and from all those other cases where workers experienced bitter disappointment due to broken promises, even by labor politicians. It was also apparent that the new ideas were best received in those circles where the great strikes of 1911-1913 had been organized, among the young organized miners of Wales and in the transport industries: railway workers, dockworkers, etc.

The conquest of the main branches of industry by the workers is presented in a more precise sense in syndicalist theories than in the old anarchist theories, which were always very vague, or in the parliamentary socialist doctrines, which, whether unconsciously or not, tend toward state capitalism, even in the form that the Russian Bolsheviks have given to this conquest under the banner of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The tactic, which envisages the “elimination of the employer,” leaves no room for doubt and lacks nothing in clarity.

Likewise, this removal can no longer be confused with the nationalization of mines, factories, and workshops in the sense of their transformation into public enterprises.

What modern syndicalists strive to achieve is what has been called “industrial democracy.”

In the theories of class struggle as they understand them, it is no longer just a matter of the continuous improvement of working conditions aimed at improving wage labor, which is always put forward; on the contrary, it is a matter of attacking entrepreneurial profit, conquering factories and workshops, even at the cost of a temporary reduction in profits.

The conquest of industry by the workers, understood in this way, does not take place overnight, however energetic the propaganda on the part of the workers may be. The proponents of the new doctrine have no illusions in this regard.

We must point out, however, that in the last months before the war and even during the war, English workers achieved some practical victories: Various large companies have preferred agreement with their staff on the principle of employee participation in management to incessant open conflict. These practical victories have contributed more to the development of modern doctrines than several years of theoretical propaganda could have done. The most advanced workers are tired of industrial feudalism.

On the other hand, because the events of the war have accustomed the population to a general supervision of industry that was previously unknown, the ideas of nationalization of large enterprises and, at the same time, of worker participation in their management have become more prominent everywhere and have made their way into public opinion. In England, the progress made by these ideas has even been reflected in official reports.¹⁵

In the English coal industry, which we take as a typical example, an official commission had completed its task in mid-March of investigating the economic situation and the labor disputes that had broken out. Several of the witnesses heard by the Coal Commission had made such revelations about the profits made by the owners in the midst of the war that they aroused genuine anger in the country and provided powerful support for the workers' cause. ¹⁶ Public opinion found its echo in the official report (the Sankey Report), which went so far as to categorically condemn the existing system of ownership and exploitation. ¹⁷

The movement in favor of involving workers in the management of the enterprises in which they work is noticeably supported by the transformation of large capitalist enterprises into joint-stock companies, in which the real owners hardly manage their companies themselves anymore.

We know how little the small, isolated shareholder actually still owns of the mines, factories, workshops, or warehouses of which they are “owners,” and how often capitalist enterprises, while granting their numerous owners a certain interest on the money they have lent, work primarily for the benefit of the members of the supervisory board or the banks that have provided them with money.

Since the direct interests of small shareholders are so obviously sacrificed in numerous industrial and commercial enterprises, this explains the sympathy that representatives of workers' organizations have found in recent years. After acquiring shares in various of these companies, they appeared at their general meetings to criticize the administrative officials and directors. Since they dealt primarily with the issue of wages, they also endeavored to discuss all problems from the standpoint of shareholders whose interests had been violated. In a word, this is the same policy of peaceful penetration into capitalist enterprises that was mentioned above.

This policy of penetration is only just beginning to be applied, but it may play an important role in the future.¹⁸

From a theoretical point of view, propaganda in favor of this policy is most advanced in Germany, where the trade union press began discussing the need for joint, methodical action by the various trade union associations several years before the war.¹⁹

When one examines the trends toward the “democratization” of industries and the intervention of workers' organizations in the technical management of companies in all its forms, one notices that these are truly international efforts that are geared toward the specific character of the working population.

Whatever one may think of the practical solution to the problem in question, it cannot be denied that the entry of workers' representatives into the general meetings of joint-stock companies represents a social advance that clearly highlights the growing power of the modern labor movement.

For this to be the case, however, the policy of peaceful penetration referred to here must be used by workers as a weapon in the class struggle. This policy should not be confused with the approach taken by individual capitalist companies that grant their employees shares in their company, distribute other bonuses, or give their employees a share in the profits in order to show their goodwill and bind them to their companies.

When used for the latter purpose, the various bonus, gratuity, profit-sharing, and partnership systems in companies must be regarded as a gesture toward wage earners that are not intended and not suitable for truly preparing organized workers for the management of companies.

A classic example: the steel trust attacked by the American government defended itself in 1912 with a document stating that among the registered owners of the trust's share capital were “more than 22,000 of its employees” and that “8,000 other employees” were also subscribers to shares.

However, at that time, nowhere in American industry was the oppression of workers under the rule of capital more severe and categorical than in the factories and workshops of the powerful Steel Corporation.

The inquiry conducted in 1912 by the parliamentary commission, chaired by Mr. A. O. Stanley of Kentucky, into the founding, historical development, and internal organization of the U. S. Steel Corporation informed the astonished world that the American iron and steel industry was characterized by extraordinarily long working days and relatively low wages (compared to the high cost of living in the United States). This inquiry showed that this was particularly true of the large category of unskilled workers, whose numbers had increased, especially since 1895 (as a result of the introduction of a huge amount of machinery), and who were recruited predominantly from immigrants from the four corners of the globe.

From the point of view of the working class's struggle for liberation, state intervention in favor of workers' participation in the profits of the companies in which they work could hardly be more significant than the “gifts” of employers.

The situation is different when it comes to their participation in the management of companies. Here, the state could intervene energetically, but—and here we see the revolutionary syndicalist theses again—in capitalist society, one can expect nothing else from the state than that it acts as a tool of public government, which the ruling classes use in their own interests. Until now, legislative measures in favor of what is called “worker supervision” in large industrial enterprises have always remained halfway.

The class struggle is developing and transforming itself under the influence of today's shift in the balance of power, but protectionism and philanthropy always play only a subordinate and insignificant role in its manifestation.

However, the two efforts at peaceful penetration mentioned here can contribute a little to the democratization of industrial ownership, and from this point of view they are interesting.

From the same standpoint, one must evaluate all attempts at class cooperation in social production, such as the Gemeinwirtschaftliche Anstalten (public utility institutions) founded in Austria after the war under the influence of the Social Democratic Party.

The members of the general assemblies of these enterprises include representatives of the Austrian government, workers' organizations, employees, and customers, the latter being represented by the large warehouses of the consumer cooperatives.

All these attempts at class cooperation and the peaceful integration of workers into production are not enough to satisfy the aspirations of modern revolutionary syndicalists. Not only does it seem to them that the work of liberating the workers is progressing too slowly; on the contrary, we have already pointed out that even the most cautious among them readily admit that the workers of today cannot suddenly and completely take over the overall management of all industries. But revolutionary syndicalists claim that under the current social order, attempts at class cooperation and the peaceful intrusion of workers into production will always be paralyzed and dependent on the mercy of a few big businessmen and high finance.

To achieve the ultimate goal, they say, it is first necessary for the social revolution to make a clean sweep of centuries-old property institutions. Before the great Russian Revolution of February 1917, Russian revolutionaries of various shades assured us that any attempt to introduce reforms in their country would be doomed to failure until the old, already too rotten government had been overthrown.

According to the syndicalists, capitalist feudalism is destined to break down in the countries of ancient civilization and gradually, but not without tremendous upheavals, transform itself into an industrial democracy. The boldest individual entrepreneurs, who do not want to be in the same social conditions in the service of labor as labor was formerly in the service of the capitalists, will still find the opportunity to take the initiative and assume the great responsibility and heavy risk of organizing new industries and the social life of less civilized countries.

It is undeniable that the existence of a social theory based on the necessity of a great transformation of the economic conditions of our society and assuming that all partial attempts to prepare wage workers for their future task should remain subordinate to this will take on great significance.

Whatever may happen, it will exert enormous pressure on all major historical events in the period of social and political struggles that has dawned in our countries of ancient civilization since the World War.