Syndicalism
[3][note 1] Many scholars, including Ralph Darlington, Marcel van der Linden, and Wayne Thorpe, apply syndicalism to a number of organizations or currents within the labor movement that did not identify as syndicalist.
[note 2] He and van der Linden argue that it is justified to group together such a wide range of organizations because their similar modes of action or practice outweigh their ideological differences.
He coined capitalist to describe the political class granting itself monopolies on the use of capital, and wanted workers to oppose this state control through peaceful means, only using force defensively.
He and his followers advocated the general strike, rejected electoral politics, and anticipated workers' organizations replacing rule by the state, central syndicalist themes.
The Haymarket Affair, as these events became known, led anarchists and labor organizers, including syndicalists, in both the United States and Europe to re-evaluate the revolutionary meaning of the general strike.
They were able to gain influence, particularly in the bourses du travail, which served as labor exchanges, meeting places for unions, and trades councils and organized in a national federation in 1893.
[18] Although the Wobblies insisted their union was a distinctly American form of labor organization and not an import of European syndicalism, the IWW was syndicalist in the broader sense of the word.
Foster later abandoned the IWW after a trip to France and set up the Syndicalist League of North America (SLNA), which sought to radicalize the established American Federation of Labor (AFL).
[34] Outside of North America, the IWW also had organizations in Australia,[38] New Zealand, where it was part of the Federation of Labour (FOL),[39] Great Britain even though its membership had imploded by 1913,[29] and South Africa.
[45] According to van der Linden and Thorpe, workers' radicalization manifested itself in their rejection of the dominant strategies in the labor movement, which was led by reformist trade unions and socialist parties.
Similarly, the trade unions frequently allied with those parties, equally growing in numbers, were denounced for their expanding bureaucracies, their centralization, and for failing to represent workers' interests.
Moreover, because of the time constraints of their jobs they were forced to act immediately in order to achieve anything and could not plan for the long term by building up strike funds or powerful labor organizations or by engaging in mediation.
[64] According to Darlington, anarchism, Marxism, and revolutionary trade unionism equally contributed to syndicalism, in addition to various influences in specific countries, including Blanquism, anti-clericalism, republicanism, and agrarian radicalism.
[65] Bill Haywood, an American syndicalist and leading figure in the IWW, defined the union's purpose at the First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World as "the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism".
For unions to fulfill this role, it was necessary to prevent bureaucrats – "whose sole purpose in life seems to be apologising for and defending the capitalist system of exploitation", according to Larkin – from inhibiting workers' militant zeal.
[75] Francis Shor argues that the "IWW promotion of sabotage represents a kind of masculine posturing which directly challenged the individualizing techniques of power mobilized by industrial capitalism".
It was attended by 38 delegates from 65 organizations in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
[93] Moreover, a number of anarchists led by Peter Kropotkin, including the influential syndicalist Christiaan Cornelissen, issued the Manifesto of the Sixteen, supporting the Allied cause in the war.
As a result, according to historians like Darlington or van der Linden and Thorpe, the CGT was no longer a revolutionary syndicalist organization after the start of World War I.
Finally, they gave similar arguments as the French, warning of the dangers posed by the "suffocating imperialism of Germany", and felt obliged to follow the CGT's lead.
[108] Argentine, Brazilian, Spanish, and Portuguese delegates later met in October in Rio de Janeiro to continue discussions and resolved to deepen cooperation between South American syndicalists.
Lenin abandoned the theory of historical trajectory, which represented the idea that capitalism is a necessary stage on Russia's path to communism, dismissed the establishment of a parliament in favor of that power being taken by soviets, and called for the abolition of the police, the army, the bureaucracy, and finally the state – all sentiments syndicalists shared.
[note 10] Although they were still coming to grips with the evolving Bolshevik ideology and despite traditional anarchist suspicions of Marxism, they saw in Russia a revolution that had taken place against parliamentary politics and under the influence of workers' councils.
The FVdG started to be held in high regard for its radicalism by workers, particularly miners, who appreciated the syndicalists' ability to theorize their struggles and their experience with direct action methods.
Throughout this wave of labor radicalism, syndicalists, along with anarchists, formed the most consistently revolutionary faction on the left as socialists sought to rein in workers and prevent unrest.
The Italian USI, the Spanish CNT, the British shop stewards, and the revolutionary minority of the CGT had official representatives, while others like John Reed of the American IWW, Augustin Souchy of the German FAUD, and Taro Yoshiharo, a Japanese Wobbly, attended in an unofficial capacity.
[158][note 11] The Spanish Revolution of 1936 resulted in the widespread implementation of anarcho-syndicalist and more broadly socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Levante, with the main union organization of the Republican faction being the CNT.
[180] Several authors argue that syndicalism's demise was the result of workers' inherent pragmatism or conservatism, causing them to only be interested in immediate material gains rather than long-term goals like overthrowing capitalism.
During the Spanish transition to democracy, the CNT was revived with a peak membership of over 300,000 in 1978; however, it was soon weakened, first by accusations of having been involved in the Scala affair (bombing of a nightclub), then by a schism.
The strike wave, including the recruitment of unskilled and foreign-born workers by the Congress of Industrial Organizations, that swept the United States in the 1930s followed in the IWW's footsteps.
