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Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Three sources: • Workers’ Socialism • Marxism • Anarchism Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Workers’ Socialism: • Perspective of the producer • Aim: autonomy on the job – associations • Liberation of working class task of the workers themselves • After the revolution the economy will be run by trade unions Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Marxism: • Economic power-relations determine society • Struggle for Socialism is primarily an economic struggle to end capitalist relations and free the worker from capitalist subjection and exploitation • Economic struggle is more important than political struggle • Trade unions should lead the class struggle not political parties Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Anarchism: • goal is to free the worker from capitalism and to emancipate the individual from the mass • the organization should not undermine the development of the members as individuals • direct action the best means to educate the worker for the struggle and for postrevolutionary society • direct action the complete opposite to socialdemocratic strategies and to hierarchy in general Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations History: • As a mix of the three ingredients, Syndicalism emerges during the late 1890s • Charte d’Amiens (1906) important statement of principles, but Syndicalism is not a French invention • In various countries various factors at work: • France: critique of parliamentary socialists and critique of terrorism • Great Britain, United States and Germany: critique of reformist and passive trade unions • Netherlands, Spain, Portugal: exclusion from parliamentary elections and critique of parliamentary socialists and Marxist strategies. F. Domela Nieuwenhuis, Le Socialisme en Danger (1897) • Russia: example of France and strength of Russian anarchism Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations History: • Before 1914 syndicalism strong France, Netherlands, United States, Italy • Syndicalist internationalism difficult to establish: 1907 Amsterdam and 1913 London • First World War: set back: • Reformism of CGT • Disagreements among anarchists • Strengthening of social-democratic radicalism > Zimmerwald Movement > Communism Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations History • After World War I competition with successful Communist movement leading to a split in many syndicalist unions. • 1922 in reaction to the threat of the Profintern foundation of IWA, to which many syndicalist federations adhere • strength of syndicalism shifts to Southern European countries: Spain or Latin American Countries: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua. • Many different activities: antimilitarism, anti-imperialism. Heyday: Spanish Civil War, discussion about strategy (working within a revolutionary government?) Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations History • During thirties general decline of the movement • After Second World War continuing decline Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Causes of decline • competition of communism in a more and more bipolar world • competition of capitalism: the rise of the welfare state • stagnation in syndicalist theory and analysis: • as workers’ Socialism syndicalism centres around the role of the producer and around production • its Marxism precludes syndicalism from looking further than economic matters • its Anarchism rightly stresses the value of the individual, but does not suffice as an analysis of society as a whole; no blueprints of a better society. Revolutionary Syndicalism: history, promises, limitations Remedies • Theory needs an update: • the needs and consequences of modern technology • the development of global capitalism • the lessons of planned economies • especially the role of the market • the working of welfare states and of modern states in general • the place of production and work in relation to other aspects of life • the negative and positive sides of the current level of welfare • the desirable state of well-being.
