Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire
It emerged out of the libertarian faction of the Unitary General Confederation of Labour (CGTU) and split away after it came under the control of the French Communist Party (PCF).
Its exclusionary ideology and political sectarianism alienated many workers, who preferred to instead join the communist-led CGTU, the reformist CGT, or unaffiliated autonomous unions.
Although the French victory in 1918 briefly tempered the labour movement's revolutionary tendencies, when material conditions failed to improve, far-left politics experienced a revival.
[4] Anarcho-syndicalism, which called for trade unions to remain independent of all political parties, whether socialist or communist, also experienced a revival within the CGT during this period.
[6] Besnard and other French anarcho-syndicalists sought to preserve the autonomy of trade unions from political parties and aimed to increase the influence of libertarianism in the CSR and CGT.
[6] As head of the CSR, Besnard spoke in favour of establishing workers' control over the economy and called for trade unions to adopt a revolutionary programme.
[8] Besnard led the anti-statist faction of the CGTU, with the support of the railroad workers' and ceramicists' unions in Limoges,[9] but his libertarian resolutions were ultimately defeated at the organisation's congress in Saint-Etienne.
[10] Besnard subsequently established a Syndicalist Defense Committee (CDS), through which he aimed to combat the Bolshevisation of the CGTU and reassert the influence of syndicalism in the organisation.
By the following congress, although the CGTU formally adopted proportional representation for its constituent unions, the syndicalist minority was frozen out of official vote tallies.
[25] As a result, the Revolutionary Syndicalist General Confederation of Labour (French: Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire; CGT-SR) was established.
[31] For skilled workers, whose concerns about job control had been neglected in the CGT's push for economic rationalisation, the revolutionary syndicalism of the CGT-SR seemed to be a preferable alternative.
[35] Most of its members were based in the Île-de-France, although its most important centres were in the southern provinces, with influential union sections in Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Lyon, Marseille, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse and Trelaze.
[38] Some autonomous unions in Limoges, representing shoemakers, garment workers, ceramicists and municipal employees, broke away from the CGTU in protest against its Bolshevisation, including.
[40] The CGT-SR also gained support from dissident syndicalists in Saint-Etienne, where small cabinet makers', textile dyers' and metal polishers' unions affiliated themselves with the new organisation.
[41] Apart from the shoemakers in Limoges and the metalworkers in Loire, both of which worked in industries that had undergone relatively few technological changes, the CGT-SR ultimately failed to attract any mass support.
[50] The Charter emphasised the self-sufficiency of syndicalism and, in recognition of the complexity of the problems brought up by the abolition of capitalism, discussed the need to integrate scientists and technicians into the revolutionary syndicalist movement, as well as the need to bring together urban industrial workers and rural peasants.
[68] From its founding in 1926, the CGT-SR had recognised the rise of fascism, which it considered to be a "new governmental doctrine of finance capital, who direct the entire capitalist system".
[69] The CGT-SR itself rejected any cooperation with reformist organisations,[70] denouncing the CGT's general secretary Léon Jouhaux as a "traitor" for his collaboration with the Sacred Union.
Some extremists in the CGT-SR entirely dismissed unification, which they described as "the castration of syndicalism", and called for action by a revolutionary minority, while denouncing the masses as "blind, servile, traditionalist, superstitious, and bestial".
[78] Despite its differences with other anarchist groups, the CGT-SR lent its support to the Centre de liaison contre la guerre et l'Union sacré, an anti-militarist and anti-Stalinist organisation formed to oppose the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance.
The increased militancy of the mid-1930s had not benefited the CGT-SR. Its paper, Le Combat Syndicaliste, required members to subsidise its publication, which was handled entirely by its editor Adrien Perrissaguet.
[87] Pierre Besnard acted as general secretary of the CASDLPE and the organisation's manifesto was published in Le Combat Syndicaliste, in which it called for local anarcho-syndicalist committees to be established and announced the publication of a newspaper L'Espagne Antifasciste to publicise the situation in Spain.
[88] Many of the anarcho-syndicalist committees established, including those in Marseille and Saint-Etienne, were little more than fronts for existing CGT-SR sections, which shifted their organising efforts towards solidarity with Spain.
[92] The CGT-SR also held a series of public meetings throughout the country, where Pierre Besnard, Constant Counault, Aristide and Paul Lapeyre would share the stage with speakers from several other anarchist groups.
[98] The CGT-SR and FAF believed that any alliance with non-anarchist forces would require them to jettison anarchist principles, although this belief was contrary to the UA's understanding of the proposal.
[99] The anarchist united front to aid Spain was ultimately broken; the CGT-SR and FAF continued to operate the anarcho-syndicalist committees without the involvement of the UA.
[100] Attempts to find common ground for the reunification of the anarchist movement quickly collapsed, with Lucien Huart deciding to quit the CGT-SR and join the UA.
[106] The CGT-SR had idealised and exaggerated the revolutionary sentiments of Spanish republicans and the leading role of the CNT-FAI, the latter of which they portrayed as the only force in Spain resisting the Nationalists.
The CGT-SR often failed to understand the CNT's place within the Spanish popular front and gave it singular credit for the efforts of the entire anti-fascist coalition.
[122] Historian David Berry described his impression that, by the late 1930s, the CGT-SR had become a marginal groupuscule, "concerned primarily with sectarian disputation and indulging in what Lenin would no doubt have called 'revolutionary phrase-mongering'".
