The CDS was formed to oppose the influence of the French Communist Party (PCF), which quickly took over the leadership of the CGTU and brought it into the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU).
[8] By 1922, the divisions between the reformists and the revolutionaries within the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) had culminated in a split, as the CSR dedicated itself to establishing a new trade union centre.
[9] The revolutionary faction ultimately withdrew from the CGT and established the United General Confederation of Labour (French: Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire; CGTU).
[10] The libertarians of the CSR initially dominated the leadership of the CGTU, which declared French syndicalism to be a definitively revolutionary and anti-statist movement, positioning it against all political parties and governments.
[18] As the RILU had so far only managed to secure the affiliation of small, minor unions, it focused its recruiting efforts on the CGTU, despite its concerns about the strong libertarian and anti-statist influence over the organisation.
[19] The Bolsheviks directed the French Communist Party (PCF) to rally support for the RILU within the CGTU by infiltrating its trade unions, attacking the libertarians in their publications and forming alliances with other pro-communist factions.
[24] With the support of the pro-communist faction, Monmousseau's motion was carried and the new political bureau of the CGTU was brought under the control of the Vie Ouvrière group, with the PCF declaring it a "brilliant victory for the party".
[31] Although RILU general secretary Solomon Lozovsky publicly disregarded the CDS as an unimportant splinter group,[29] in his private correspondence with Pierre Monatte, he called for the organisation to be destroyed "with fixed bayonets" and insisted that each issue of La Vie Ouvrière and L'Humanité carry hit pieces against it.
[39] This proposal was vocally opposed by delegates from the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA), which urged the CDS to stop seeking a diplomatic solution to the break with the RILU, which they believed would only undermine the syndicalist movement.
As the CDS advocated staunchly for working class unity and wanted to avoid another split in the labour movement, it requested that its members remain in the CGTU, despite disagreements on international affiliation.
[42] After Gaston Monmousseau had taken over the leadership of the CGTU, the French Communist Party had consolidated control over the organisation, which presented a challenge to attempts by the CDS to negotiate a solution.
He put forward a resolution that declared syndicalism to be a revolutionary movement to abolition both capitalism and the state, and which called for the CGTU to remain autonomous of political parties.
[44] But the CGTU majority rebuffed the minority's overtures, insisting that union autonomy was a counterrevolutionary proposal and dismissing the CDS leadership as "enemies of the working class".
The murders caused a further breakdown in relations between the libertarian minority and the communist majority, which respectively attacked each other in communications and attempted to seize control of each other's organisational structures.
Besnard hoped that the UFSA would encourage defections from disillusioned members of both organisations, which in turn could compel their leaderships to reunite the syndicalist movement around anti-political principles.
In November 1926, at a congress in Lyon, the Revolutionary Syndicalist General Confederation of Labour (French: Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire; CGT-SR) was established, bringing together eighty independent unions.