The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions
The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions
Étienne Buisson
For some years now, syndicalist theories and action have come to assume a growing importance in the working life of France. Outside the political socialist movement, an economic and corporate movement has developed: both aim at the same final object, the transformation of social organization. But the methods they recommend are profoundly different.
The Socialist Party, faithful to a long-standing tradition, counts on parliamentary action to transform the capitalist social order; the conquest of public power by the proletariat will have the consequence of profoundly modifying the spirit and form of legality, while at the same time enabling it to establish a new mode of economic production and consumption. To parliamentary action, which it considers the most effective, it does not refuse to add union action and cooperative action whenever either of them can support its efforts and be directed in the same sense as itself. It is by parliamentary action and economic action combined — and not by either one alone — that the Socialist Party intends to realize its program.
Syndical action has less clarity in theory. Very diverse tendencies appear among organized workers: some wish to remain politically attached to the Socialist Party and to confine their union action to purely professional and economic questions; others wish to give the union a broader social role, claiming that it carries within itself all the powers of working-class emancipation; still others sharply oppose union action to socialist political action and intend to substitute the former for the latter, which they reject as useless and vain.
Need it be said that these various syndicalist tendencies, distinct in theory, are most often blurred in practice, and that most of the comrades who call themselves syndicalists are unaware of these doctrinal divergences? It is in this way that, having insufficiently defined their program of corporate action, a great number of socialist workers have taken the title of syndicalists without noticing that they were sharing this designation with libertarians or anarchists whose syndical and political program is profoundly different from their own.
Thus the prestige of syndicalism is built upon a real ambiguity.
It is with this indeterminate force that the Socialist Party must today reckon. It must concern itself with the progress this force is making each day, for the political elements it contains may, at any given moment, lead the Party in new directions and turn it away from that combined economic and political action which it considers most in conformity with its chosen program.
The first concern of the Socialist Party must therefore be to take an exact account of the elements that make up the syndical movement.
It is indispensable for it to know with precision the friends and adversaries it will encounter among the syndicalists, and to assess as accurately as possible their respective forces.
Chapter I — Revolutionary Syndicalism and Reformist Syndicalism
There exist within the official unity of the Confédération Générale du Travail two distinct syndical tendencies which often even come into conflict with each other.
1. Revolutionary Syndicalism
It must be discussed first because it is at present the one most spoken of. It seeks publicity; it wants to attract the attention of workers and of the country by every means. It writes and speaks abundantly, organizes meetings, posts placards throughout France, and, in a word, considers agitation to be the principal means of its propaganda. Its program, moreover, is one of those that strike all imaginations: those of the bourgeois and of the rulers, because it speaks at every moment of imminent violence, foretells coming social transformations, and because its chimerical propaganda is a perpetual threat of disorder and disorganization; — and those of the workers, because it tells them that they have only to “will” in order to have power, because it commends to them “direct action” as the sole method of social liberation and preaches to them “sabotage,” that is, defective workmanship as a way of striking the employer in his interests and making him tremble under the perpetual threat of seeing his raw materials lost or damaged through bad work.
Revolutionary syndicalist action moreover goes beyond the purely syndical domain. The anarchist convictions of most of its leaders draw it at every moment onto political ground, where it opposes any social organization, socialist or other, any democratic representation, and parliamentarism in particular. It repudiates as opposed to workers’ interests anything that is not itself. The union must be the heart and brain of working-class life; it is the necessary and sufficient organ of its emancipation. Everything else must be rejected.
Such is the theory. Practice is often different.
Sabotage, for example, has hitherto been hardly more than a threat. There have been very few cases where workers have voluntarily damaged equipment or spoiled raw materials for any normal motive of work. It is in fact generally easy to detect, even in an enterprise of some size, the author of bad workmanship: every workshop is precisely organized to monitor what each worker does, and it is rare for an act of voluntary or involuntary spoiling to pass unnoticed. Stretching the meaning of the word sabotage, it has been applied to the after-the-fact damage of any sort of work. Among house painters, for example, sabotage is much spoken of: workers come at night and spoil the paintwork done during the day by others. But this is not sabotage, not bad workmanship; it is a maneuver of war.
Direct action has been practiced much more effectively than the revolutionary syndicalists imagine. Its more or less noisy demonstrations or meetings have, at all times, been organized by working people and, in general, by all citizens desirous of exerting pressure on public opinion or on the government. Strikes have long been practiced by workers, syndicalized or not, who wish to wrest improvements in their condition from their employers. But there is, since direct action has been so much spoken of, no new tactic capable of legitimately intimidating the employer or the bourgeois, unless workers were to have direct recourse to violence — in which case they would step outside legality, fall immediately under the law, and give the government plausible reasons for arresting them; their syndical action would thus be reduced to nothing. Very rare, moreover, have been until now the violent actions, prepared and executed by syndicalized workers acting to defend their corporate interests or to exert pressure on an employer.
Not only are direct action and sabotage still mere theories that the leaders of the C.G.T. have not been able to make penetrate into the everyday customs of French workers, but the most convinced revolutionary syndicalists themselves have not hesitated in recent years to have recourse to peaceful and legal means in their struggles with employers. Thus we have seen the various secretaries of the building-trade unions — an industry that is particularly “revolutionary” — gathered in a strike committee, make a collective approach to the Minister of the Interior in May 1906 and ask him to intervene with the employers to obtain a few concessions. Such an approach is the absolute opposite of direct action.
The attitude of revolutionary syndicalists toward social reforms is no less contradictory. In principle they reject parliamentary reforms; they denounce them as practically ineffective and intended solely to make the proletariat patient by deceiving it. But as soon as a workers’ law is passed — for example, the law on weekly rest — they clearly feel the necessity of taking an interest in it, for the workers attach great importance to it. Then the revolutionary syndicalists become the warmest defenders of the new law.
In short, we are dealing here with a group of trade unionists who speak much of violence, of direct action, of sabotage, but who, generally speaking, have not in practice followed a tactic very different from that of the other syndicalists.
It must moreover be acknowledged that revolutionary syndicalist action, which to my mind makes the lasting and deep development of workers’ organizations run serious dangers, has at least the indisputable advantage of carrying out a particularly striking syndical propaganda among the workers. Through the political agitation it practices in a sustained way, revolutionary syndicalism has given enormous publicity to the idea of corporate grouping, and one may say that there is hardly today any wage-earner who has not several times been solicited, whether by personal invitation or by collective appeals posted or distributed, to join the union of his trade. This is an important result of revolutionary syndicalism, and one that ought in all fairness to be noted.
2. Reformist Syndicalism
Facing revolutionary syndicalism stands reformist syndicalism, whose theory is quite different.
There is here no series of doctrines as absolute as among the revolutionaries. To direct action and sabotage, the reformists oppose positive syndical action, mutual aid funds, strike funds, unemployment funds — a whole body of slow and persistent efforts which do not pretend to change everything at one stroke, but which aim at constituting a workers’ army powerful in numbers and cohesion.
Forms of action vary somewhat from one federation to another. Among typographers, for example, there is considerable favor for joint employer–worker commissions to settle conflicts and to establish the bases of collective labor agreements — which does not prevent the typographers, if they judge it necessary, from having recourse to strikes. Among machinists, relations between workers and employers are less easy than in the printing trades: hitherto joint commissions have been impractical; nevertheless the federation intervenes, whenever it can, with employers in order to avoid useless strikes and to obtain satisfaction by negotiation.
The tactic followed by each organization depends on the particular circumstances of its industry, on established habits, on the general spirit of the employers in the trade, and so forth. We are here in the domain of practice, and that is why the methods vary somewhat — for the method that may succeed in one industry, given its economic conditions and the dispositions of employers and workers, may not be at all suited to another.
All reformist groupings, however, have one common bond: a concern for the practical result to be obtained, for the material advantages to be realized. The recent congresses of the National Union of Railway Workers, of the Federations of Miners and of Machinists have given us indisputable evidence of these realistic preoccupations, which are shared by most reformist syndical organizations. (1)
What distinguishes the two syndicalist schools is above all the spirit that animates them, the language they use to address workers and employers. I have indicated that the syndical practice of the partisans of direct action and sabotage is not specifically different from that of the reformists; but their speeches are not the same, nor is the manner in which they conduct disputes with employers. The first, in time of strike, counsel intransigence, the maintenance in full of workers’ demands, the all-out struggle that, as at Raon-l’Étape, often risks turning out badly. The second, whose declarations are more moderate, counsel rather calm and good order in the streets, the cool examination of the employers’ proposals, and their acceptance whenever there is real advantage in it or when circumstances do not allow one to hope for better.
One of the principal points of tactic by which reformist syndicalism is distinguished from revolutionary syndicalism is its concern to constitute strike funds, financial reserves which permit, on the day of voluntary unemployment, when everyone has left the workshop, to provide for the needs of the strikers.
The difference of conceptions and practices was clearly visible during the strikes of May 1906. The federation of the Book trade (typographers) spent in Paris, in 13 weeks, 318,358 francs, and in all of France, for the entire duration of the strike, 705,000 francs including Paris. In a smaller federation, the Machinists’, which has 3,000 members in Paris, 57,500 francs were spent for Paris, Lunéville, and Saint-Étienne. By contrast, the revolutionary unions of the Building trades (masons, carpenters, painters, locksmiths) made no distribution of strike pay. In the Carriage trade, they limited themselves to organizing communal meals in various quarters of Paris and the suburbs. But these various strikes lasted only four to eight weeks. In the Furniture trade, where the struggle was particularly long and arduous, the Paris union had at its disposal 15,000 francs — a very meager sum for an industry in which wages are generally high. Alone among the federations of revolutionary tendency, the French Lithographic Federation, whose revolutionary syndicalist secretary has not been long in office and which has behind it a reformist past, spent during the strike the sum of 87,520 francs.
If, generally speaking, revolutionary unions have no strike funds while the reformists do, this is because the former are of recent creation and have but a small number of members, while the latter have more members and were founded longer ago. That is the true reason of fact, and not of principle, that prevented the revolutionary syndicalists from having money behind them at the time of the May 1, 1906 movement. They said at the time that their revolutionary principles did not allow them to constitute strike funds; this was a poor reason intended to mask their inadequate organization.
It is difficult to estimate exactly the actual forces of the two syndicalisms. There is, moreover, no federation that does not contain both revolutionaries and reformists. Generally speaking, however, one may say with accuracy that most of the large and old syndical organizations have reformist tendencies, while the revolutionaries have so far taken the direction only of recently created syndicates or federations of small membership.
In the C.G.T. itself, on the reformist side we have:
The Railway Workers (57,700 members), the Federation of the Book (12,000), the Textile Federation (33,000), the Federation of Machinists (6,000), the Civil War Establishments (state arms manufactories), the Musicians (a small but well-led organization), the workers of the Ceramics trade, the workers of Gas and Lighting, the workers and women workers of the State Tobacco manufactories (a very recent organization that includes nearly all the workers), the Federation of Transport Workers (in particular the omnibus workers of Paris, who are very clearly reformist), and so on.
On the revolutionary side:
The Federation of Dock Workers (12,000 members), the Federation of Metalworkers (10,000), the Federation of Slate Workers (6,000), the Federation of Goldsmiths (2,000), the Federation of Match Workers (1,500), the French Lithographic Federation (1,600), the Building Federation, which includes painters, locksmiths, joiners, carpenters, navvies, the Carriage Federation, the Food Industry, the Wood Carriers, the Municipal Workers, the workers of the paper, hat and other industries, etc.
Other trades cannot be classified in either of the preceding categories. These are: the workers of the Naval Arsenals (12,000 members), the hairdressers, the leather and hide workers, the boot and shoe trade, the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone workers, etc.
Finally, even outside the C.G.T., the Federation of Miners includes about 90,000 reformist dues-payers as against 18,000 revolutionaries. By itself this federation forms about half of its last congress.
The figures and indications above are necessarily approximate. It is impossible to know the number of members of each federation, for it is not a fact; moreover, syndical secretaries have sometimes refused to tell me. I have not been able to verify personally the revolutionary or reformist tendencies of all the organizations mentioned above, and have had to rely in many cases on information very sincerely given to me at second hand.
But I believe nevertheless that I can conclude beyond dispute, from the figures above, that the number of French syndicalists with reformist tendencies is far greater than that of revolutionary syndicalists. (1) The leaders of the C.G.T. themselves do not even contest this.
How then is it to be explained that, in these conditions, the central workers’ organism — the confederal bureau — is in the hands of the revolutionaries, that is, of the minority? Quite simply, by reason of the mode of representation that has been adopted in the C.G.T. congresses. There is no proportional representation. Instead of having the number of votes attributed to each organization based on the number of its members, each organization has a right to a number of votes fixed arbitrarily several years ago, and which no longer corresponds to its present importance. Thus at the Congress of Amiens, certain organizations had one vote per 31 members, while others had only one vote per 3,000.
At the Congress of Amiens, a minority of 45,000 trade unionists out of 300,000 had a number of votes sufficient to attain a majority in the voting. (Guérard, Humanité of 31 May 1907.)
Many attempts have been made to modify this illogical situation, but in vain so far. The revolutionaries use every means to keep control of the C.G.T.
They justify their attitude by the rights of minorities. If proportional representation were applied, they say, the small organizations would be submerged by the large ones, which would not be just. But they find it more just to impose the views of the minority on the majority.
This state of affairs can only be modified by a vote of the congress, and any vote on this question will be carried out under the system currently in force. Change can therefore only come about if certain revolutionaries, examining this paradoxical situation in good conscience, feel its full injustice, and joining those who have long demanded its transformation, organize throughout France a serious campaign for proportional representation, and resolve to exert by every means an irresistible pressure on the confederal Committee.
There is, moreover, among the reformist syndicalists, a moral difficulty in reacting with all the energy that would be necessary against the declamations of revolutionary syndicalism; for the latter is, in the eyes of many very sincere but ill-informed workers, the representative par excellence of workers’ interests. It therefore takes both courage and skill on the part of reformist union secretaries to speak out in the press or in public meetings against conceptions as attractive to the proletariat as direct action or the revolutionary general strike. The revolutionary militants do not hesitate to accuse of moderation, or even of treason, those syndicalists who do not march with them or who question their tactics. Hence, for fear of seeming too moderate by openly opposing certain proposals or actions, many reformist secretaries momentarily accept the usurped domination of the revolutionary minority, counting on the corporate propaganda they vigorously carry on within their own organizations to convince their comrades. In confederal congresses, indeed, action is difficult and dangerous; the ground and the weapons of combat are very varied. Moreover, the reformist organizations always group themselves so as to ensure the majority. It is therefore with the near-certainty of being defeated that the reformists go to the C.G.T. congresses.
Some exceptions to this overly timid attitude of the reformists must be noted. With regard to the May 1, 1906 movement in particular, two very vigorous protests were raised against the polemical procedures of the C.G.T. — by Keufer, secretary general of the Federation of the Book, and by Coupat, secretary general of the Federation of Machinists. The first, in a long, well-documented article in the Revue Syndicaliste, proved that Émile Pouget, editor-in-chief of the Voix du Peuple, organ of the C.G.T., had given a very inaccurate account in the Mouvement Socialiste of the events of the typographers’ strike and of the attitude of the secretary general of their Federation. The second, in an address to the Congress of Amiens, vigorously took issue with the Confederal Committee, which in its report had declared the syndicalist machinists hostile to the strike movement and had asserted that their organizations had not taken an active part in it — which was contrary to the facts. Protests and discussions of this kind ought to multiply. They are precious, for they can open the eyes of those willing to see.
This paradoxical situation must not last much longer, for it is contrary both to equity and to common sense. How will the reformists extricate themselves from this embarrassing position? On the one hand, by redoubling their energy in the individual propaganda carried on among syndicalists of all trades. They founded for this purpose, about two years ago, a small monthly review, the Revue Syndicaliste, in which they defend their ideas with great dignity, and which provides their comrades with valuable documentary arguments for use in discussions with the revolutionaries.
Moreover, practical reason always triumphs in serious and sincere minds. And it is thus that we have seen several of the most prominent militants of revolutionary syndicalism gradually evolve toward reformist action. Guérard, for example, secretary general of the National Union of Railway Workers, was a few years ago secretary of the C.G.T., before Griffuelhes; he was then a resolute partisan of the general strike, and everything led one to fear that he would tip toward the most revolutionary syndicalism. Experience of facts and men changed his disposition; he set aside grand words and formulas, and became one of the most powerful syndicalists. Similarly Niel, secretary of the Bourse du Travail of Montpellier, was in 1904 still a fervent revolutionary. Yet he has published in L’Humanité in recent months articles of reformist inspiration, very much opposed to the libertarian tendencies of the C.G.T.
This movement of minds is to be observed not only among the most prominent militants; a corresponding evolution is visible in the mass of the syndicalized. Thus, for example, on the question of proportional representation in the C.G.T. congresses, whereas at the Congress of Lyon the matter had not even been raised, at the Congress of Montpellier there were 75 mandates in favor; at the Congress of Bourges in 1905 this minority had grown considerably, with 388 mandates in favor of proportional representation and 822 against.
Here is a set of circumstances that bears witness to the vitality of reformist syndicalism, and that ought to encourage its leaders to common, reasoned action against revolutionary syndicalism. The capital point at the moment is to obtain equitable representation: when the organizations have in the congresses a number of votes proportional to their numerical importance, the reformist current will have the majority and will be able to take back the direction of the confederal committee, monopolized by the revolutionaries. When the miners have entered the C.G.T. — which the revolutionaries oppose by every means — the reformist majority will be solidly established.
To triumph, the reformists will need much effort, all the more sustained because the revolutionaries will offer fierce resistance. But it would truly be a fine and noble campaign for the reformists, leaving aside for a moment the absorbing concerns of their particular syndical interests, to undertake a wide propaganda in the name of equity and of the just representation of all syndicalists in the confederal congresses, for the triumph of the syndical method that they have recognized as alone effective.
Chapter II — The Socialist Party and the Syndical Movement
The Socialist Party must follow this phenomenon very closely, for its diverse manifestations surely constitute, by their very novelty, a powerful attraction in the eyes of the proletariat. The parliamentary action of the socialists seems to many somewhat outdated, somewhat monotonous; so much has been asked of it; it has given proportionally rather little. Hence the bustling pace of syndicalism appeals even to good socialists wearied by parliamentary slowness. There is therefore a kind of competition, if one may put it that way, with socialism. What ought the Party’s attitude to be?
The Socialist Party can no longer regard the C.G.T. as an ensemble of groupings whose neighboring opinions differ only slightly and which nonetheless constitute a united, compact body whose members are intimately bound to one another. There are too many oppositions, often even too lively hatreds, between the two French syndicalist schools, for the Socialist Party to be able to ignore them. Anyone who has read the proceedings of the recent confederal congresses or the polemics of the syndical press knows too well the violence of the antagonisms between which the Socialist Party must take sides. (1) For it must take sides. It cannot in fact pretend that the quarrels which divide the syndicalists are of a purely syndical nature, of a kind so particular that a political party has no business pronouncing on them. It is not in fact two properly syndical schools facing each other; on one side there is an imposing mass of organized workers who have continually pursued corporate and social improvements through the dual syndical intervention — energetic and pacific — and through legal intervention, less effective but useful for reforms of a general character; (2) on the other side, a smaller group of syndicalists who wish to seize the syndical movement for the benefit of a violent action, as much political as economic, which is to substitute itself for any other form of working-class emancipatory action. (3)
It is therefore indispensable that the Socialist Party, taking exact account of the specific value of each of the syndicalist schools, take a clear stand; for if it remained voluntarily in the vague, it might one day find itself in a difficult or dangerous position with regard to those one might call the political syndicalists, who pursue the same object as the Party — the social emancipation of the workers — but by very different paths, often even by opposed ones.
To guide it in this choice, the Socialist Party might well search the archives of the socialist parties to whose fusion it owes its formation, for decisions of congresses or groups indicating the attitude to take toward the two syndicalisms. But it would find decisions often contradictory enough to embarrass it.
Thus on the question of the general strike and on the emancipatory value of syndical action, the P.O.F. always showed itself very skeptical. In 1894, the very year of the birth of the C.G.T. — founded by syndicalists favoring the general strike, with Briand at their head, who had just broken noisily with the Guesdist syndicalists — the congress of the P.O.F. voted the following declaration:
“The workers’ party sees in strikes only the inevitable and necessary consequences of capitalist society based on the antagonism of class interests.
Socialism does not push toward strikes, does not provoke them, because, even where they succeed, they leave the workers in their condition of proletarians and wage-earners. But it takes account of them as a fact which determines its conduct and its duties.
No one would think of forbidding strikes to workers. Our duty is, on the contrary, wherever conflict occurs, to take up the defense of the strikers. The less we are fomenters of strikes, the more we must give aid to workers compelled to refuse a labor become intolerable.
A complete and perfect instrument of defense in the present society, all the more so the strike — even generalized — cannot be the tool of working-class emancipation. To prepare the general strike would be to lead the proletariat into a dead end, to divide it against itself into strikers and non-strikers; it would be to immobilize, in the struggle for common liberation, the workers of the countryside, and to organize our own defeat.
It is on the political terrain that the proletariat is the equal of the capitalist, and even superior to him, since the proletarians are the majority. It is only by political action, by the conquest of political power, that organized workers can emancipate themselves.”
In 1897, in Paris, the same party declared that:
“If the syndical organization of the two enemy classes engenders the indispensable conditions of socialist society, it cannot establish that society by its forces alone; for such a work, syndical action is indispensable, as the example of the English proletariat would suffice to demonstrate, so powerfully organized in its trade unions and yet farther perhaps than any other proletariat from the necessary social transformation, because it has not been able to join political action to corporate action.”
It recalled that “the political expropriation of the capitalist class must precede and alone make possible its economic expropriation.”
In 1899, the congress of Épernay further declared that:
“By ‘conquest of public power,’ the P.O.F. has always meant the political expropriation of the capitalist class, whether this expropriation be carried out peacefully or violently.”
On these same questions, by contrast, the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Révolutionnaire (Allemanist), now part of Socialist Unity, has from its foundation always affirmed its faith in revolutionary syndical action crowned by the general strike. At all its congresses, it voted resolutions in the very clear sense of the one passed at the Congress of Saint-Quentin in 1892, which affirmed “the possibility of revolutionary action other than that resulting from electoral protest.” It assigned the general strike as ultimate goal to syndical and political groupings, and it wished thereby “to leave the too parliamentary domain, to break with the old customs of a party of tactics, to become a party of revolutionary action.” (1)
This past divergence of views must not, moreover, influence the Socialist Party in the attitude it must take today toward the two syndicalist schools. Socialism, as living thought, must refer to tradition; its tactics must be inspired by the demands of each epoch; and it can well, if it pleases, be syndicalist today, as it was ministerialist yesterday or partisan of the general strike tomorrow, provided that it judges the well-understood interests of the working class to require these successive attitudes from it.
Most recently, in April 1907, on the occasion of the debates on the antisyndical policy of the Clemenceau cabinet, several socialist deputies made known their feelings about the C.G.T. in a discussion in the Chamber. Their speeches, committing only themselves, were not delivered, on this occasion, in the name of the party. But they had a fairly large echo in parliamentary circles and in the socialist press, so that it is worth examining them rapidly here.
Vaillant, Willm, and Jaurès in particular dealt with this question, so complex and so delicate, before the Chamber. But the circumstances led them to speak more as advocates than as members of a political party. Instead of examining thoroughly and in detail the consequences, good or bad for socialism, of the ever-greater influence of syndicalism in popular circles, they were forced to seem to consider the question settled, and syndicalism as the most natural and best tendency there is.
Vaillant was expressing a very widespread opinion among French socialists about syndical action when he exclaimed:
“The C.G.T. truly represents the syndical movement, the conscious organizing movement of the proletariat for its syndical struggle, just as the socialist party represents its political party for its emancipation. That is why we defend it, with the right of syndical organization, as we would defend the socialist party itself.”
And further on:
“There is no longer to be talk of conflict between two organizations which, in their absolute independence and in their distinct corporate and political roles, are complementary organisms of the working class, for its total action which will become, by the force of things, more and more coordinated — the one representing the corporate unity, the other the political unity of the French proletariat.”
He moreover gave the socialist definition of the syndicate when he said:
“The syndicate is the generative element which in the transformed society will become the association of producers, and this syndicate is at present, by federating freely, the organization which realizes the corporate force of the proletariat fighting with its political force, with its socialist party, for its development, for its emancipation.”
And throughout his speech he constantly united the words syndicalism and socialism as two solidary conceptions, intimately linked with each other in his mind.
But this is a theory of syndicalism that is not at all in conformity with that of the revolutionary syndicalists. The Confederal Committee, in fact, is far from regarding political action as “completing” syndical action; the latter, they say, suffices entirely unto itself and contains within itself all the powers of proletarian emancipation (Merrheim). In speaking as he did, Vaillant was therefore in opposition to the revolutionary syndicalists. Why did he not say so? Is there not danger in letting the idea become widespread that the Socialist Party is intimately linked to the syndicalist movement, when the militants of that movement aim at eliminating socialist political influence as soon as possible?
Vaillant moreover pushes the confusion still further: he proclaimed from the tribune of the Chamber the perfect agreement reigning between the C.G.T. and the Socialist Party:
“In a previous discussion, M. Clemenceau wished to oppose to the Socialist Party the declarations of certain syndicalists. This question has no reason to exist. Some friction may have arisen at the beginning between the C.G.T. and the socialist party, but if the fact occurred and if any of it remains particularly and locally, this is only of secondary importance, because in the relations of the C.G.T. and the socialist party, and as I have indicated, an end has been put to all political interference in the syndicates by the congress held at Amiens (1) by the C.G.T. and at Limoges by the Socialist Party.”
There are truly many inaccuracies here, and Vaillant seems to write history according to his retrospective wishes. The birth of the C.G.T. was neither ardently desired nor seconded by the Socialist Party; it was after a violent discussion between partisans of the general strike and socialists of the P.O.F. that occurred at the Congress of the Federation of Syndicates at Nantes (1894), the schism from which the C.G.T. was to be born, animated by the pure spirit of the general strike, while the Guesdist socialists tried to reconstruct a rival syndical organization. As for “political interference in the syndicates at the present moment,” it suffices to reread the Congress of Amiens to form an accurate idea of the anarchist propaganda that has been carried on there for several years. As for proclaiming that “there are no more divisions,” I really do not know where Vaillant has seen any militant of revolutionary syndicalism declare his agreement with the Socialist Party. No doubt the violent accusations and perfidious insinuations of which the socialists have been the object on the part of the syndicalists have lessened. But the situation of the revolutionary syndicalists pursued, in contempt of all justice and of all democratic and republican feeling, by M. Clemenceau’s government has made them feel the value of the disinterested support of the socialists, and they have for some months refrained from attacking them. But this has not disarmed them; they keep their whole ideal, their theories, and their tactics. And the socialists are far from being able to proclaim perfect agreement.
Another inaccuracy of Vaillant’s must be noted, taken up moreover by Willm in a speech full of excellent passages and courageous affirmations: it concerns the leadership of the C.G.T. Vaillant speaks of these “very intelligent men, who are secretaries of the confederation or secretaries of the syndicates, and not at all leaders of this movement.”
And Willm adds:
“It is the totality of workers’ organizations that dictates to the C.G.T. its attitude, its line of conduct; the impulse does not come from above, it comes from the syndicates; in the same way, for the Socialist Party, the life of the party is not in the head, as you often think you see it: it is in the entirety of the party…”
This assimilation of the Socialist Party and the C.G.T. as regards their internal direction is absolutely inaccurate. A workers’ organization in which proportional representation is voluntarily banned, in order to leave direction of the movement to the minority — as the present leaders of the C.G.T. loudly affirm — is a method completely opposed to that of the Socialist Party. It is not “the totality of workers’ organizations that dictates to the C.G.T. its attitude,” but rather a minority kept in control of the congresses by an outdated mode of representation. The Socialist Party, on the contrary, decidedly favoring proportional representation, seeks in a sincere democratic effort the exact expression of the majority’s will through a scrupulously combined system of federal groupings. The two methods of representation are absolutely opposed.
On the very day Vaillant spoke at the Chamber, a voice was heard which disapproved the present infatuation of the Socialist Party with revolutionary syndicalism: it was that of Jules Guesde. The official text of his declarations has not yet been published; but here is what the Réveil du Nord gave of it, with all reservations:
“Direct action, the strike, jostling soldiers, hanging employers, seizing the factory — what a fine victory! You will only have changed the proprietors; property will be no less private. That is anarchist theory, that is — the old tune we know — and which, having changed instruments, is no less the same song. And if the proletarians armed with their ballots are not capable of sending men of their class to public office, they are still less capable of getting their skin punctured to go in pursuit of an aim that cannot be reached for them by the longer road.
The bourgeoisie has feared neither all-out syndicalism nor fanciful antimilitarism. Bad literature, harmful action that hampers our route, paralyzes our march, and that is why I speak with anger, with indignation of these attempts at deviation that put on revolutionary airs and make us lose years of propaganda.
Direct action and antimilitarism as certain people understand them are sicknesses from which the party will free itself as it has cured itself of others.”
This did not prevent Jaurès, on May 11, from delivering at the Chamber a speech in which he seemed to take this “bad literature” seriously.
The tone of polemic changes with him. We find again in his words that high idealism, that breadth of disinterested views which has won him in international socialism so considerable a moral position. He does not brutally reject, like Guesde, a phenomenon as important as syndicalism, which it does not suffice to despise or to deny in order to annihilate; but he also avoids Vaillant’s excessive declarations, who saw fit to confound socialism and syndicalism in one and the same love.
He pleads, however, before a tribunal he knows to be ill-disposed, and he naturally strives to bring out only the points favorable to those he is defending, attenuating everything that could be turned against them. Thus he acknowledges the presence of anarchists in the C.G.T. “But,” he adds, “is their action so directing as you say?”
“Beside the old libertarians or partisans of that revolutionary general strike which, for the government, suffices to disqualify everyone — except the members of the government — there are positivists, reformists, opportunists, moderates. And among all these tendencies, what prevails, what makes the division? Is it an authoritative expression? It is the working class itself, periodically convened, deliberating in its congresses.” (1)
And without examining more closely the real role anarchists have played in the syndical movement, he limits himself to noting that the libertarian syndicalists have “abandoned the old metaphysics of the State” on the question of the law (2):
“these positive minds, instead of opposing a metaphysical negation to the law, take it as a fact and use it as such for the progress of the working class… and from the moment that even the libertarians recognize the law as a fact of which one must make use for the progress of the proletariat, the consequence — if not avowed at least necessary — is that the proletariat must conquer as much as possible of guaranteeing laws, of emancipatory laws, of organizing laws. And this is how, by the very force of evolution, the C.G.T. necessarily harmonizes itself with the very effect of social legislation.”
Here Jaurès goes too far ahead of the libertarians’ thought: in order to defend the organization whose direction they have monopolized, he attributes to them ideas they have never formulated; this method of defense is not without danger for the Socialist Party. Is it in conformity with its interests to have the proletariat believe that the anarchists are becoming partisans of legal action, that they are ultimately very close to us?
In this speech, I repeat, Jaurès interpreted the facts and statements in the manner most favorable to those he was defending. But it is nonetheless evident that this is not the way the question should be discussed and debated among socialists. Having shown a remarkable independence of mind in defending before the Chamber a handful of libertarian anarchists pursued by the government of the Republic, the Socialist Party not only has the right but the duty to examine closely the possible consequences of its ever more intimate relations with politicians who have done nothing to deserve its confidence.
What contributes still more, perhaps, than these diplomatic inaccuracies of parliamentary speeches to giving the worker public the impression of unity of thought and action between the revolutionary syndicalists and the Socialist Party, is the attitude of L’Humanité over many months.
We see today the authorized friends of Guesde, the Lafargues and the Brackes, writing in L’Humanité alongside Griffuelhes and Pouget without challenging extreme syndicalism or anti-parliamentarism. Likewise, Jaurès and the former members of the P.S.F. neglect to argue with the revolutionary syndicalists; so that an uninformed reader might believe that the declarations of a libertarian like Pouget or Griffuelhes express the general thought of French socialism on syndical questions.
The party’s organ, moreover, is not merely neutral; it is in reality syndicalist. Several of the editors charged with syndical questions bring to their reports or appraisals positions manifestly favorable to revolutionary syndicalism, and pass over in silence most of the manifestations of reformist syndicalists. Without wishing to give a series of citations that would no doubt be tedious, I want to point out, among others, the following case:
It concerns the congress of railway workers in April 1907. At the first session, a comrade reproached the administrative council with not having carried on a sufficiently active propaganda in favor of the eight-hour day. To which Guérard, secretary general of the Union, replied by stating that congress decisions, always autonomous, had on several occasions answered that they were not in force to obtain the eight-hour day.
“It is nine years,” Guérard said, “since we decided on the general strike to obtain this eight-hour day. The failure was complete, and you know what the consequences were. The groups declined, others disappeared. It took us nine years to bind up the wounds, to reconstitute the groups, to become a force again, and to win over to the syndical cause the undecided. Are you capable of deciding to work only eight hours a day?” — “No! No!” replied a great many delegates. — “Then,” Guérard resumes, “we must bow before the facts and continue our propaganda methodically.”
Here is an exchange of views important enough, and educational enough in force, to merit mention in L’Humanité.
This is how it summarizes those declarations:
“A discussion takes place on the eight-hour day, and the congressists express their firm will to carry on incessant propaganda in favor of this reform, which they will only be able to win on the day when the organization is sufficiently strong.” — Does anyone really believe that the reader of L’Humanité has an exact idea of the discussion at the railway workers’ congress on the question of the eight-hour day?
It is only a detail, one will say. Certainly. But it has its value, for it is enough to pass over many details of this kind in silence to alter, in the reader’s eyes, the true character of a congress or a meeting. What distinguishes reformist syndicalists from revolutionary syndicalists is precisely particular opinions and tactics.
What are the causes of this new attitude?
1° The growing prestige of the workers’ movement and the reaction against a policy bounded exclusively by electoral and parliamentary action. The repeated failures of certain socialist politicians have cast a certain discredit on parliamentary socialism. From several unhappy experiences, the conclusion was drawn that participation by socialists in power, and by extension simple parliamentary action, were to be rejected. These repeated disappointments, joined to the antiparliamentary declamations of the syndicalists, have powerfully contributed to increasing the prestige of the syndical movement in the eyes of the organized proletariat.
2° Moreover, the very clear hostility of the members of the P.O.F. toward the C.G.T. and the indifference toward syndical questions which the P.S.F. manifested too long, absorbed as it was for several years by the parliamentary struggles of the Dreyfus Affair and republican defense, had separated the syndical organizations from them and facilitated the access of the anarchists to the head of the C.G.T. The socialists had thus lost all influence in the syndical milieus.
The socialists, alarmed by the progress of anarchist revolutionary syndicalism, who could not allow the corporate workers’ movement to grow against them, decided recently — eighteen months or two years ago — to make overtures to the C.G.T. The opening period was rather curious, often painful. We saw Jaurès, violently attacked by the Pougets and Griffuelhes, retain a conciliatory attitude toward those who insulted him. And little by little a rapprochement took shape: the socialists, making concession upon concession, the syndicalists affecting an austere mistrust; they nonetheless accepted the offer made to them to collaborate with L’Humanité; it was a tribune from which they could speak to a whole working public among whom were potential adherents to their loud syndicalism. By entering this hospitable journal, they made known that they had set their conditions of absolute independence; and the new collaborators of the socialist journal were free there to say everything under their own responsibility — a promise that has been kept on both sides.
Is it not surprising to see with what ease the socialist party has engaged itself, without preliminary discussion, without the assent of all or at least without protests, in this path that may take it so far! The history of the socialist party and its various fractions is made of schisms or alliances over questions of tactics or theory: ministerialism, the general strike, participation in the Bloc, have been the object of profound and violent discussions. And today, when it is a question not of common action between two socialist factions or two parliamentary groups, but of an alliance of the Socialist Party with a revolutionary syndicalism that recommends a policy the Socialist Party holds to be dangerous and bad, almost no one in the party protests. I know well that the Socialist Party and revolutionary syndicalism (libertarian or not) have more than one point in common: their object first, which is the transformation of present society; and then their field of action, which is the working class. But the past action and propaganda of the two political groups have marked too clearly all that separates them in their conception of social evolution, as in the details of present practice, for an alliance between them to be natural or desirable.
Certain militants of syndicalism at the C.G.T. Congress of Amiens affected to consider the union of socialists and revolutionary syndicalists as solidly established. But it is precisely on this point that the Socialist Party’s whole attention must be focused; the revolutionary syndicalists have every interest in letting this legend of union be established, in taking up residence in our party, for, when the storm has passed and the Socialist Party wishes to resume its autonomous life, it will be too late to hinder its forward march and to raise a thousand difficulties for it in its parliamentary action.
The anarchists and syndicalists, in fact, are and remain adversaries of socialism; they only commend to the working class on most current questions a method of action whose dangers the socialists have for years proclaimed. That is what we are too prone to forget.
But there is one point of revolutionary syndicalist propaganda concerning which the neutral attitude of the Socialist Party seems particularly dangerous: it is anti-parliamentarism.
The members of the C.G.T. committee, in fact, let pass no occasion to proclaim their opinion on this point. (1)
Need we recall the numerous articles of Pouget in which he repeats again and again the uselessness of parliamentary effort, to which he opposes the effectiveness of syndical action? The “néo” militants likewise do not lose sight of this part of the syndicalist program in their daily propaganda. Need we recall that in many union secretariats one sees on the wall one or several anarchist posters with sensational titles: “Don’t vote” or “To the electoral cattle”?
This propaganda is also carried on individually, by word of mouth.
I witnessed thus, several months ago, the following scene that took place in a syndicate office at the Bourse du Travail of Paris: a worker comes to be enrolled; the secretary fills out the usual forms, gives the card, receives the dues, addresses a few words of encouragement to the new member, and at the moment when the latter is about to leave, calls him back to give him a few antiparliamentary and antipatriotic pamphlets to put up in the street or in the workshop.
Far from me the thought of being scandalized by this way of doing things: each is free to think as he wishes and to seek to spread his ideas among those near him. I do not doubt the sincerity of those who carry on so naïve a propaganda. (1) But the questions which, on this point, arise for us — as for many socialists, I know — are these: Is the Socialist Party right or wrong, from the point of view of the spread of its ideas in the electoral mass, to seem to approve, or simply to tolerate, such propaganda? Is it in conformity with its interests for voters to be able to believe that there exists a cordial understanding — not to say an alliance — between the antiparliamentary anarchist syndicalists and the syndicalists who by definition are parliamentary?
It will perhaps be said that a momentary alliance on a special question — the defense and extension of syndical liberties — can be concluded between the Socialist Party and the anarchists without any regrettable repercussion in the purely political domain. I believe, however, that it would be to mistake the true scope of revolutionary syndicalist action to think it can confine itself to syndical questions. By definition, the syndicate is for the revolutionary syndicalists the essential and sufficient organ of social emancipation; syndical action must replace political action. Whenever, then, the adepts of the Pouget and Griffuelhes school carry on syndical propaganda, they are at the same time carrying on antiparliamentary propaganda.
It must also be added that the political circumstances we are passing through are particularly favorable to this propaganda. And it is not the least of the reproaches we have the right to address to certain of M. Clemenceau’s lieutenants: from the day they failed in their commitments toward democracy, they shook, if they did not ruin, in the minds of many proletarians, respect for the republican idea. They thus facilitated the anarchist theories that recommend the pure and simple abolition of useless and dangerous parliaments, and made it singularly difficult for their old friends to defend.
I feel perfectly that it is not easy in these conditions for the Socialist Party to go to war against the antiparliamentarians and to seem to defend a regime as little democratic as M. Clemenceau’s Republic. But I also feel, like many socialists, how dangerous it is to let anarchist ideas acquire ever greater prestige each day among organized workers.
If the faults of the present ministry put us in the necessity of making a momentary peace with the anarchists, we must resign ourselves to it, but while keeping the greatest independence for the propaganda of the ideas we hold to be just.
And we must remind the proletariat unceasingly that the idea is stronger and more lasting than the men who claim to serve it by deforming it. We must tell it that if M. Clemenceau and some of his collaborators have warped the weapon of social and democratic progress that the Republic is, others will know after them how to give it back its real reach. We must remind it that for this it suffices that the number of socialist votes grow each day, and that the number of conscious proletarian deputies in Parliament reach the importance it should normally have if all the exploited, all the victims of the present social regime, voted for their natural defenders.
It is precisely in periods of crisis like the one we are going through, when workers’ groups, feeling themselves threatened in the few liberties they have just won, unite to face the bourgeois Government better, that it is important to recall to socialist troops the principles of our party, which the sincere or interested declamations of neighboring groups may make them somewhat lose sight of.
This is what the Socialist Party’s organ should have done: to advise combined action, but not the confusion of parties. Now L’Humanité has been chiefly occupied for months in highlighting the contradictions of certain political personalities, which was not difficult; it has therefore developed in its readers distrust toward men, but it has not sought to strengthen in them belief in ideas and in institutions.
Chapter III — Before Nancy
The polemic that preceded the Congress of Nancy was particularly instructive.
Taking as a pretext the motion that was to be proposed by the Federation of the Dordogne (1) to the Congress of Nancy, and drawing on the debates that had taken place at the congress of the Federation of the Seine, (2) Griffuelhes, regular contributor to L’Humanité, published on July 30 an article in which he claimed that the Dordogne motion was indeed a declaration of war: because it spoke of concerting and combining efforts on certain occasions, he concluded that the Socialist Party wished to impose marriage on the C.G.T. “If it were realized, it would be by the will of one party and against the hostility of the other; there would consequently be subordination, since the Party would have imposed its caprice on the workers’ organization,” considered as a “negligible quantity.” Guesde is in Griffuelhes’ eyes responsible for these deplorable projects; and so that he may repent of having dared to rise up against syndicalism, which is progressively invading socialism, the secretary general of the C.G.T. attacks with violence the old veteran of this party to which he has long belonged.
This article aroused great indignation among the socialists. It was incomprehensible that a leader of syndicalism should have permitted himself such low attacks on Guesde in the almost official organ of the Party. A socialist response was awaited with impatience.
On August 5, Paul Lafargue contented himself with treating the question of the relations between the C.G.T. and the Socialist Party, making only a passing allusion “to Griffuelhes’ epileptic outburst against Guesde,” when many comrades would have wished a detailed and topical reply to Griffuelhes’ accusations.
On August 8, the administrative council of L’Humanité, having received protests, limited itself to recalling the conditions in which the syndicalists had been invited to collaborate with the journal. Although the courtesy promised by Griffuelhes had not been observed in this article, the administrative council appealed to everyone’s good will to avoid this “incident” having unfortunate consequences.
On August 9, Griffuelhes had what he himself called, taking up Lafargue’s expression, “a new epileptic crisis.” The second article constitutes, like the first, a precious document that enlightens us very exactly on the method followed by the secretary general of the C.G.T.
Here is how he himself defines it: “I made a point,” he says of his first article, “of striking hard, very hard, in order to put my comrades on guard.” And further on: “In matters of tactics, it is often useful to take the offensive. Do you understand now the why of my crisis?”
Thus is explained his whole attitude during recent months. The resolution of the Dordogne said: “The congress decides that there is reason to ensure that, according to circumstances, syndical unity and the political action of workers may be concerted and combined nationally and internationally.” From this phrase, so timid, so moderate even in form as in substance, Griffuelhes — to whom any agreement is displeasing — makes a declaration of war. He knows very well that this will not be a reasonable means; but his prestige authorizes him to say it is one; nevertheless, these good relations between the Socialist Party and the syndicates might diminish his influence and that of his anarchist friends in syndical milieus. He therefore does not hesitate to “strike hard to put his comrades on guard.” And he knows well that the good socialists who are members of syndicates and do not go deeply into questions, who have no time to consult documents, will repeat after him — because they will have read it printed by Griffuelhes in their journal — “Guesde wished to declare war on syndicalism.” Does he not count for nothing the negligence of the socialist public, which like all publics never looks at questions closely?
It is always by the application of the same scrupulous method of documentation that Griffuelhes — for whom all weapons are good — does not hesitate to retell in a socialist journal the gossip dragging through the bourgeois press about Guesde’s villas at Cannes or Biarritz. These are means of inferior morality. What does it matter? Griffuelhes does not draw back from using them. “In matters of tactics, it is often useful to take the offensive.”
“What do we ask,” continues Griffuelhes, “but that they leave us in peace as we leave them in peace from the Party — each carrying on his propaganda as he understands it.” This indifference that the secretary of the C.G.T. affects toward what happens in our Party — we know how feigned it is. Griffuelhes is far from having “left the party in peace,” he who is a notorious propagandist of antiparliamentarism, and who never misses an occasion to speak or act against the Socialist Party and its militants. But this indifference is in good taste; it is a gesture confirming his superiority. And he says coldly: “I don’t care a bit about anything that may interest these gentlemen.”
Such is the method of Griffuelhes which many other examples could still illustrate. He goes his own way and seeks to destroy everything that resists him: all weapons are good to him. He is one of those who concern themselves more with the end than with the means employed. Such is the moral and intellectual value of the man who has for some time taken on the Socialist Party an influence which must be acknowledged considerable.
Through L’Humanité, where he has the sympathies of the editorial board and of the administrative council, he has made known to the socialist public his syndicalist and political ideas, which have won him a certain prestige in many working-class circles.
His noisy articles on the eve of the Congress of Nancy made many fear formidable schisms. It was then the triumph of his method. To “strike hard,” he let it be known that he was ready to fight the Party. If the Congress voted the Dordogne motion, it would be war. Knowing the value attached to what he says among certain socialist groups, he knew well that this threat would make the Party take a new step toward all-out syndicalism. The fear of entering into open conflict with the C.G.T. and of seeing a certain group of syndicalist socialists — more syndicalists than socialists — separate themselves from Unity, has in fact led some of our chiefs and leaders, in particular, to new revolutionary concessions. It was the fear of Griffuelhes’ threats that made the Dordogne motion be rejected.
At the same time as Griffuelhes’ second article, L’Humanité published a reply from Paul Faure, secretary of the Federation of the Dordogne, which constitutes an excellent discussion of syndicalist pretensions.
“The workers, most of them socialists and trade unionists at the same time, cannot ignore each other or fight each other for any reason… It is not possible for me to forget at my syndicate that I am a syndicate member. Nothing can decide me to establish a ‘watertight bulkhead’ in my brain and cut myself in two. And what is true for the individual is true for the class to which he belongs.
“That is why Syndicates and Socialist Party are called by the force of things, by the similarity of interests, needs, aspirations, to meet, to unite, to concert according to circumstances, because it is the same individuals of the same class who constitute the essential elements of these two forms of organization.
“These observations, these facts, we wished to state in a resolution that we thought, so great is our naïveté, ought to rally to our feeling the totality of the socialists, but also the totality of the trade unionists.
“We thought that, by appealing to the loyalty and clear-sightedness of all, by placing ourselves above all the tendencies and especially outside all intrigues, it would be possible for us to put an end to a misunderstanding of facade and a hardly serious confusion, which seem to last only by causing considerable harm to the proletariat.
“We had counted without the resistances of those who live by this misunderstanding and by this confusion, and who have every interest in perpetuating them.
“Such is the case of citizen Griffuelhes. Here we are accused by him of plots and projected machinations.
“To say to the workers: ‘Do not divide yourselves, cease to mistrust each other. Unite, concert, and combine your efforts nationally and internationally to bring down more quickly capitalism and the abominable regime that grips you, exploits you, kills you’ — this, it seems, is to be antisyndicalist, is to want to ‘domesticate’ the General Confederation of Labor, is a characterized declaration of war.
“Words then no longer have meaning for some!”
Then, taking up the Griffuelhes question itself, Paul Faure exposes what the secretary of the C.G.T. truly is in the eyes of many socialists:
“But I will give satisfaction to Griffuelhes. Yes, there is between him, some of his friends, and us a declaration of war. I hasten to say that it has not come from us.
“A small number of men, including Griffuelhes, said one day: ‘No politics in the syndicate!’ That was good.
“But soon we learned that this meant: ‘Syndicalism suffices unto itself, politics is a pure joke, of no value, and under the pretext of syndical propaganda we will go into the Bourses, into the working towns, to preach electoral abstention, the new and great revolutionary theory.’ This was bad, because all politics are not the same politics.
“It was bad because the socialist party would be wounded to death if the workers accepted the renunciation of political struggle, and because to weaken and reduce the workers’ political forces, disciplined and organized in our party, is to prepare in the dark — by what follows, willy-nilly — the service of the capitalist class.
“These theories seemed suspect to us. We have not seen, in fact, what the workers would gain by them. But we see each day what they would lose.”
And recalling the bitter struggle that every four years pits workers against employers at Roubaix, he concludes that if the result of elections were as unimportant as Griffuelhes claims, Motte and the other industrialists of the North would not spend so much time, effort, and money on it.
“There is the political class struggle waged at Roubaix without truce or mercy. And when, in the midst of battle, a voice rises from the workers’ camp to say, as Griffuelhes and his friends do: ‘Don’t vote, to hell with politics’ — these militants commit a treasonous task that fortifies the economic power of the capitalist class by leaving them the free disposition of political power.
“It is not therefore against Griffuelhes the antivoter, against Griffuelhes the anarchist, breaker of energy and of unity, that we are angry. We are angry with him because he strikes us and because he is the declared enemy of the Socialist Party.”
This article, which corresponded to the intimate thoughts of many socialists, was the only one of its kind. The Party leaders kept silence. Paul Faure had in particular solicited the intervention of Jaurès:
“I ask Jaurès, who in the Party since unity has found only camaraderie, whose certain tendencies, certain struggles have been able to be loyal and frank — what does he think of Griffuelhes’ ‘manner’? It is under your ‘political direction,’ Jaurès, that L’Humanité appears. I know well that you do not exercise permanent control over the entire journal, that this is not possible. But Griffuelhes’ article must have caused a sensation in the editorial offices. You inserted it without any reservation; not a word from you, Jaurès, has come to soften the painful impression. Above all, do not speak of the freedom enjoyed by the editors of the Syndical Tribune. None can or must contest it, on condition, it seems, that the best among us be not slandered and outraged, and that the political action of the Working Class, that the socialist party, be not flouted in the very daily of the Party.”
Jaurès declared at Nancy that if he had been in Paris at the time the first Griffuelhes article was published, he would have intervened. He would have had the administrative council of L’Humanité immediately set things straight. “You will not get me,” he said in conclusion, “to open a free tribune to men whose freedom I will then chain up.”
That was not the question: Griffuelhes’ articles had to appear, even though they had exceeded the bounds. But an immediate reply was called for. A socialist had to reply to the syndicalist Griffuelhes. It was only eight days after the publication of the first article, and as a sequel to a second article by Griffuelhes, that Paul Faure’s reply appeared on the second page. This would prove, if further proof were needed, all the syndicalist partiality of L’Humanité’s editorial board.
On August 10, moreover, Latapie came to the rescue and, in a brief article, marked his agreement with Griffuelhes. He represented the Dordogne proposal as bound to determine “fratricidal struggles” between members of the Socialist Party and of the C.G.T.; he claimed moreover that the decisions taken at Nancy and Stuttgart could not move the syndicalists.
“Fratricidal struggles are repugnant to us: they serve the game of governments and bourgeois; nevertheless, if anyone tries to lay hands on our groupings, we shall know how to defend them once more, and it will be seen that we are a block of bronze that the most refined political and governmental maneuvers cannot dent.”
Thus the Congress of Nancy was much more “prepared” in L’Humanité by the revolutionary syndicalists than by the unified socialists.
Chapter IV — The Congress of Nancy (August 1907)
Motion of the Cher
“The Congress, convinced that the working class cannot fully emancipate itself except by the combined force of political action and syndical action, by syndicalism going as far as the general strike, and by the conquest of all political power with a view to the general expropriation of capitalism;
“Convinced that this dual action will be all the more effective because the political organism and the economic organism will have their full autonomy, syndicalism proposing itself the same goal as socialism;
“Considering that this fundamental concordance of the political and economic action of the proletariat will necessarily ensure, without confusion, subordination, or distrust, free cooperation between the two organisms;
“Invites all militants to work as best they can to dissipate any misunderstanding between the corporate organization and the political organization of the working class.”
Motion of the Dordogne
“Considering that the international Congresses have been unanimous in affirming the necessity of political organization and corporate or syndical action ‘to combat the omnipotence of capital and improve the condition of workers in present society,’ and that they made it a duty for all workers ‘to belong to the syndicate of their profession’;
“Considering that, at the same time as the necessity of this organization and of this corporate or syndical action, the same Congresses unanimously affirmed that they ‘cannot suffice for the emancipation of the working class,’ that they ‘cannot suppress, but only attenuate, capitalist exploitation,’ that the exploitation of workers will only end when society itself has taken possession of all the means of production, and that this socialization is subordinated to the conquest of political power by workers organized in a class political party;
“Considering, on the other hand, that it is the same class which, for the improvement of its working and living conditions and for its full emancipation, is called to organize itself and act on the corporate terrain and on the political terrain, and that these two modes of organization and action, however distinct they should remain, cannot ignore or thwart each other without mortally dividing the proletariat itself;
“The Congress decides that there is reason to ensure that, according to circumstances, the syndical action and the political action of the workers may be concerted and combined nationally and internationally.”
The discussion at the Congress of Nancy had the same general character it had had in L’Humanité. There were two opinions opposed.
1° The partisans of the Dordogne motion, representing the old socialist theory, whose argument may be summed up thus:
Syndical action, being only one part of the general action of the proletariat’s emancipation, must not take too great a place in the preoccupations of militants. Definitive emancipation, in fact, can only be achieved by the conquest of public power, by the ballot, and by insurrection.
It is false to say that the Dordogne motion has for its object the absorption of the C.G.T. into the Socialist Party. But it does aim at putting an end as quickly as possible to the C.G.T.’s attacks on the Socialist Party. For we will not be the dupes of those who, under pretext of doing no politics in the syndicates, do antiparliamentarism and antisocialism there.
“We hold to socialist action as it has been carried on hitherto, however imperfect it may be, because we believe that the syndicates have no action on the State. The syndicate fights the employer: it does not reach the patronage, the patronal institution and a fortiori the State. We wish to remain socialists, to have a syndical policy that is in conformity with the parliamentary and socialist action of our party.”
Such were the broad lines of the doctrine expounded by Jules Guesde at the Congress of Nancy in the name of the minority. It was the first time the deputy of the Nord made known to the Party his thought on the present progress of syndicalist theories. He had, in May, given a speech on this subject at Roubaix, but the official text was not published, and the accounts given by the press were declared inaccurate. The true version was to appear in Le Travailleur; but this publication was postponed until after the Party congress.
Jules Guesde did not take the floor; he speaks little. In a time — and in a party — where speeches abound, he rarely makes his thought known. Thus is explained why his influence is not what a great number of socialists would wish it to be. If the veteran of socialism in France had from the start risen up against revolutionary syndicalism, he would surely have made all the militants, great and small, who lightheartedly were ready to follow the C.G.T., reflect seriously. When Guesde made his opinion known, it was already very late; his adversaries had outpaced him by the intensity and frequency of their propaganda.
2° The adversaries of the Dordogne motion — for they criticize this resolution much more than they explain the motion of the Cher — say on the contrary: For the moment, it is only a question of knowing whether the socialist party and the C.G.T. should maintain their autonomy and their independence. We believe yes.
The syndicates, in fact, being composed of members of all political opinions, an understanding between them and the Socialist Party is materially impossible, for it would have as a sure consequence the departure from the syndicates of all non-socialist members. There would result in practice considerable disturbances which the partisans of the Dordogne motion do not themselves desire.
From the theoretical point of view, moreover, syndicalism is a growing force which one must beware of impeding in its evolution. The working class has come a long way since the time when Guesde could say it had “confidence in universal suffrage”; that confidence has diminished. Syndicalism has for the moment taken on a more revolutionary attitude than the socialist party, and far from confining itself within the narrow limits of corporate demands, it penetrates on the contrary into the whole of social life and even into the State, through the syndicates of civil servants. “The C.G.T. has the sense of the right and of the revolutionary role of syndicalism, and it is when one seems to contest this right and this role that it complains of being declared war on. The danger of the Dordogne motion is to inspire the C.G.T. with the fear, however badly founded, that one wishes to limit its action and pretend to deny its revolutionary value. Without doubt, it is mistaken. But one must give the facts the possibility of disabusing it. The motion of the Cher, on the contrary, spares all sensitivities, and that is why we should vote for it, leaving the future free. After all, the only way to make agreement is to practice often, as we do on the First of May, common action.” (1)
The vote of the motion of the Cher, by 167 votes against 141 for the motion of the Dordogne, consecrated the triumph of syndicalist ideas in the Socialist Party.
Such, at least, was the meaning attributed to this vote; but to specify the full practical scope of the motion of the Cher, the various propositions composing it must be examined in detail:
I. — The Congress, convinced that the working class cannot fully emancipate itself except by the combined force of political and syndical action, by syndicalism going as far as the general strike and by the conquest of all political power in view of the general expropriation of capitalism.
Care is taken to specify clearly that syndicalism must go as far as the general strike, that it has set itself the general strike as final aim. On the question of the economic general strike, on which the syndicates of various countries are not themselves in agreement, the Socialist Party of France takes a position: it does not consider that true syndical action can have any other outcome than the general strike. Without doubt new, without prior understanding, behold the economic general strike officially recognized by our Party as the means par excellence of workers’ emancipation. I know well that this idea has often already been put forward. But were we not entitled to think that, before speaking of the general strike again at the Congress of socialist Unity, the ground would be sought on which the various parties composing this Unity might agree?
What is particularly surprising is the lightness with which this decision is taken. Is it worthy of the Socialist Party to vote on words as great and as poorly defined? That a grouping like the Federation of the Seine, for example, should give its delegates a mandate to vote only for a motion favorable to the general strike, (1) can be explained by the unreasoned sympathies of certain temperaments for this vague theory which, among many militants, has usurped the prestige once enjoyed, with the same imprecision moreover, by the “blow of force” or “catastrophism.”
But by what regrettable enthusiasm must we explain the fact that there are throughout France a majority of socialist militants insufficiently endowed with critical spirit to proclaim, without debate, that the general strike, condemned wholesale by the International Congress of Amsterdam, is decidedly the necessary outcome of syndical action and one of the very conditions of workers’ emancipation?
II. — Convinced that this dual action will be all the more effective in that the political organism and the economic organism will have their full autonomy, syndicalism proposing itself the same goal as socialism;
It matters little to us whether the signatories of the motion of the Cher are “convinced” that, etc., for will it be profitable to the two actions to be totally independent of each other? The Congress, which has not drawn back from long and ponderous motions on other subjects, could have developed this one a little, justifying for all the majority’s way of seeing it. If it did not do so, we may say it is because it could not, for there are no socialist arguments in favor of this autonomy so ardently demanded by the syndicalists. (1) Those who proposed and voted the motion of the Cher are in fact the very convinced partisans of syndicalism, who do not concern themselves with knowing how and to what extent syndicalism threatens socialism.
And this autonomy that is recommended — what does it consist in exactly? It must be a question of absolute separation, since the Dordogne motion was criticized for saying: “There is reason to ensure that, according to circumstances, the syndical action and the political action of workers may be concerted and combined nationally and internationally.”
If combinations “according to circumstances” are to be rejected, this is therefore because the two movements, syndicalist and socialist, must always be absolutely separated and each follow its own path without concerning itself with the other.
The second paragraph of the motion of the Cher therefore comes back to this paradoxical proposition: the action of the political organism and that of the economic organism, having a single goal, will reach their maximum of effectiveness when the two organisms each follow their own path without concerning themselves with each other.
III. — The third proposition holds still more surprises in store for us:
Considering that this fundamental concordance of the political action and the economic action of the proletariat will necessarily ensure, without confusion, subordination, or distrust, free cooperation between the two organisms;
The fundamental concordance of the political action and economic action of the proletariat — that is, the fact that they propose the same goal — will necessarily ensure free cooperation between the two organisms; in other words, the community of objective necessarily ensures the cooperation of actions. That is what the French socialists assembled at the Congress of Nancy in 1907 quietly vote on the recommendation of Jaurès, of Vaillant, of Révelin. Have we then forgotten the entire history of our party since it has existed?
Have not the Guesdists, the Broussists, the Allemanists, the Jaurèsists, and so many other now-vanished groups all had “the same goal”: “workers’ emancipation, the conquest of public power, the suppression of capitalism, the establishment of a society where greater social justice would reign”? Is that not also the object of the anarchists? Now have we ever seen, among the various socialist factions, that cooperation establish itself which we are now told is necessary today between the political action and the economic action of the proletariat? Need we say again that it is always questions of tactics, of opportunity, that have most profoundly divided the socialist groups, and is it not entirely evident that it is questions of tactics that still divide socialists and syndicalists?
If this community of objectives were to suffice in the future to ensure cooperation, why has it not ensured it in the past? Why, by the magic of the “fundamental concordance” affirmed in the motion of the Cher, would the relations hitherto strained between socialism and syndicalism suddenly become cordial and easy without any autonomy reigning, without any subordination establishing itself, without any distrust appearing? It is the day after the articles of Griffuelhes and Latapie in L’Humanité that the Congress of Nancy approves these ramblings.
What, finally, is “free cooperation”? A cooperation without engagements, each reserving the right to abandon the other when it pleases?
IV. — The conclusion of the motion is worthy of its preamble:
“The Congress invites all militants to work to the best of their ability to dissipate any misunderstanding between the corporate organization and the political organization of the working class.”
It is in contradiction with what precedes, obscure and, moreover, of absolutely no practical scope.
We are asked to dissipate misunderstandings, when we have just been told that, thanks to the fundamental concordance of the two actions, free cooperation will necessarily be ensured without confusion (and therefore without misunderstanding). If there are misunderstandings, then the fundamental concordance does not suffice to dispel confusion.
But what misunderstandings exactly? Between syndicalists and socialists, the subjects of discussion are quite limited: they bear on parliamentarism, electoral action, direct action, sabotage, antipatriotism. There are the misunderstandings to be dissipated.
Are there others? Personal misunderstandings perhaps? Will the socialists need to explain to the syndicalists that Guesde has no villa at Cannes or Biarritz, as Griffuelhes affirmed in L’Humanité? It is not these little voluntary misunderstandings that the Congress of Nancy meant to speak of.
So it is the socialist militants — each of us, whatever our knowledge of these delicate questions — who are to discuss with our syndicalist comrades the usefulness of parliamentary action or the dangers of direct action, and after we have thus, in groups, discussed these questions among ourselves, the confusion will be dispelled and harmony will reign.
Behold what mouse the mountain of Unity brings forth. A pretty phrase explains to the militants who anxiously await what the congress is going to pronounce, while the anarchist syndicalists furiously assault the Party in general.
“Dispel misunderstandings,” says the Congress to the militants by way of conclusion. And on this sibylline phrase, which means nothing, it sends the congressists back to their federations.
The Socialist Party has, in reality, not dared to take a stand. A clear attitude would have determined violent discussions, perhaps schisms. The syndicalists would not have remained in Unity, where syndical action would have been put back in the very important but well-defined place that belongs to it. That is why they fought against the Dordogne motion. Socialist Unity preferred ambiguity; it preferred not to take responsibility.
If I have analyzed the motion of the Cher at such length, it is because it seems to me to be a type of those resolutions of grand words and of nil scope which have been so frequently used in our congresses for some years. It is poorly thought out and drafted with a negligence and imprecision of terms unworthy of the French spirit.
I am convinced that such empty decisions do great harm to our party, for their imprecision makes the worker who seeks a little clarity in the present chaos hesitate, and their poverty of thought drives away from our party the intellectual whom the socialist idea attracts. I am still socialist enough to wish ardently that our party should grow in numbers, that it should draw new forces both from the radical workers and from the intellectuals whose collaboration is indispensable to the development of socialism.
Chapter V — The International Congress of Stuttgart
At the International Socialist Congress of Stuttgart, which opened a few days after that of Nancy, the question of the relations between the Party and the syndicates was long discussed. In many countries, the efforts of the anarchists to seize the syndical movement have given this question considerable importance for the Socialist Party. Everywhere, moreover, the party, leaning on existing syndicates of socialist opinions or sympathies, has vigorously waged the struggle against the anarcho-syndicalists; and the foreign sections went to Stuttgart with the firm intention of doing everything to maintain and strengthen the union between the syndicates and the Party. Only the French section, faithful to the decisions of Nancy, was an exception.
Here is the text of the Austrian motion adopted by the International Congress of Stuttgart:
“To completely free the proletariat from intellectual, political and economic servitude, the political and economic struggle of the working class is equally necessary.
“The Party leads the proletarian struggle principally on the political terrain, while the syndicates lead it principally on the economic terrain.
“The Party and the syndicates therefore have, in the emancipatory struggle of the proletariat, an equally important task to fulfill.
“Each of the two organizations has a field of action determined by its very nature, on which they decide their action in an entirely autonomous manner. But there is a constantly growing domain of the proletarian class struggle in which results can only be obtained if the two organizations work together and in agreement.
“It follows that, in an ever-growing measure, proletarian struggle gives all the more results in proportion as relations between the syndicates and the Party are more intimate, without however compromising the unity of the syndical movement.
“The Congress declares that it is in the interest of the working class for relations to be established and constantly maintained in all countries between the Party and the syndicates.
“The Party and the syndicates must support each other morally and must use, in their liberating struggle, only means of a nature to hasten the liberation of the proletariat.
“They must come to a mutual understanding when a difference arises about the timeliness of certain measures.
“The syndicates will only do their duty in the emancipatory struggle of the working class if they are inspired by the socialist spirit. The Party has the duty of supporting the syndicates in their struggle for the improvement of social conditions, and, in its parliamentary action, of giving full effect to syndical demands.
“The Congress invites all syndicates falling under the conditions provided for in the Brussels Conference of 1899, ratified by the Paris Congress of 1900, to be represented at the International Congress and to maintain relations with the international bureau of Brussels. It charges, in last place, to enter into relations with the international syndical secretariat at Berlin to exchange all information relating to workers’ organization and to the workers’ movement.”
A Belgian amendment was also adopted by the commission:
“The Congress is of the opinion that the syndicates will be all the more successful in their struggle against capitalist exploitation and oppression in proportion as their organization is more centralized, their relief services better organized, their funds better filled for their struggles, their members more profoundly understanding the present economic situation, and inasmuch as they have to a higher degree the spirit of enthusiasm and sacrifice that flows with great force from their socialist ideal.”
The Austrian motion taking no account of the situation in France and being basically in opposition to the resolutions of Nancy, the majority of French delegates drafted the following declaration:
“The Congress takes note of the majority of the French Federation’s declaration that, in France, the evolution of relations between the syndical and political organizations of the working class has followed a different course, and that the reciprocal independence and autonomy of the Socialist Party and of the C.G.T. is a necessary condition of their development and their action and of the possibility of a later spontaneous rapprochement.”
Vaillant took the floor in the name of the French majority:
“We wish simply to say that relations between Party and syndicates in France are not the same as in other countries; one cannot conform to general rules this particular evolution; one must let it work itself out in confidence that it will result in the unity of proletarian forces, but without seeking to impose it for the moment… The French majority wishes to prevent an international decision from coming to disturb the special relations that have been established in France between the Party and the syndicates. There reigns at present a state of peace between them, and we are drawing ever closer to a single syndicate, to a union of forces. The French majority rises only against the fact that precise rules of conduct are being prescribed to it by the Congress.”
If the Vorwärts’s account is complete, Vaillant did not say why he had confidence in the union of the syndical and political forces. He affirmed “the state of peace” the day after Griffuelhes’ and Latapie’s violent attacks. What procedures, in his eyes, would have characterized a state of war?
The Dutch comrade Troelstra, at first inclined to support, in the name of his country’s delegation, the reservations made by the French majority, declared he could no longer do so after Vaillant’s statements:
“If we set down here a general principle,” he said, “but at the same time approve relations that are in opposition to this principle, we diminish the moral value of our decision. What I miss in our French comrades’ explanations is the declaration that they are ready to act, despite the difficulties they encounter in their country, in conformity with the spirit of our resolution. Now, with regard to the decisions of international congresses, none of us is free. We must voluntarily submit to their decisions. If only the French could show us a powerful syndical movement! In reality, their syndicates could still learn much from those of other countries, and from Germany in particular. The C.G.T. is led by people who act on the workers by grand words and who ask only small dues from them, as we have also seen done by the workers’ secretariat in Holland. We must combat anarchism and syndicalism in political life, but also in syndical life. If Vaillant has been able to tell us that there exists a fine unity between the Party and the syndicates in France, this comes from the fact that the Party has renounced fulfilling its duty, has renounced introducing clarity into the brains of the syndicate members.”
And the Austrian comrade Beer, rapporteur of the question, added in concluding the discussion:
“It is not interfering in the difficulties of the syndical movement to say that we consider it desirable and useful for good relations to be established between the Party and the syndicates. It is nothing other than good advice, which we hope our French comrades will also follow. We do not at all claim to look down upon our French comrades. But we believe that the work of socialist unity in France will not be complete until a powerful syndical movement has been created.”
The Austrian motion was passed by 212½ votes against 18½, composed as follows: France 11 votes (out of 20), Italy 3 votes (out of 20), United States 4½ votes (out of 14).
Whatever the political value of the words spoken by Troelstra and Beer, it must be recognized that, taking account of what we know of French socialism and syndicalism, the Austrian motion as presented and voted is not at present applicable in France.
After declaring “that it is in the interest of the working class for intimate relations to be established and constantly maintained in all countries between the Party and the syndicates” — which no socialist, even the members of the French majority, contests in principle — the Congress adds:
“The Party and the syndicates must support each other morally and must use, in their liberating struggle, only means of a nature to hasten the liberation of the proletariat. They must come to a mutual understanding when a difference arises about the opportunity of certain measures.”
Here is something of remarkable imprecision. These “means of a nature to hasten the liberation of the proletariat” are precisely the objects of disagreement between socialists and syndicalists. It is these “means,” appraised differently by each side, that determine the “misunderstandings” of which the Nancy motion spoke in equally vague language. That was the point to develop: what means could be employed by common agreement by the two organizations and thus furnish the indisputable proofs of the possibility of “intimate relations”?
If hitherto the international motion lacks precision, it suddenly takes on an imperative form which moreover contradicts what precedes. “The syndicates falling within the conditions required” must “be represented at the international Congress” and “maintain relations with the international bureau of Brussels.” But if some syndicates, on pain of forfeiture, must be socialist, this settles in advance disagreements about the value of this or that “means.” “Inspired by the socialist spirit,” the syndicates will march in perfect agreement with the socialist party from which “the socialist spirit” emanates. The “intimate relations” between party and syndicate are ensured by this community of socialist spirit.
This is truly far too simple. And it is because it reduces itself to this that the Austrian motion has no practical scope in France. Given that a certain proportion of French syndicalists are animated by a spirit indifferent or hostile to socialism, could the question be resolved by simply saying: “the syndicates will only do their duty if they are inspired by the socialist spirit”?
The French majority could not vote such a proposition. The minority’s attitude is moreover not very explicable, for its unreserved acquiescence to the Austrian motion seems to indicate how indifferent it was to the practical scope of the international decision. I am quite sure, in fact, that neither Guesde nor any of his friends at Stuttgart had any illusions about the success this motion would obtain in France.
The French majority, included in the majority of Stuttgart, should have urged the latter to draw up an action plan that would have indicated more clearly their socialist duty to French socialists. By adopting a brutal formula, the Congress forced the French majority to bow before the decisions of the International, for it was momentarily unable to realize the recommended agreement. There can in fact be agreement between two parties present only if each of them is disposed to it. Now, in the case before us, one of the parties has clearly let it be known that it rejected any understanding. Therefore this understanding will not occur.
The international Congress, to which this situation was not unknown, ought to have concerned itself with it. Instead, it leaves the French Party divided and in an ambiguous situation. The French majority, which had the worst of it at Stuttgart, will continue its action in opposition to the decisions taken, while the minority — whose views are those of the international majority — will always be open to suspicion of plotting against the independence of the syndicates. Such is the very false situation of the Socialist Party in France the day after a national congress and an international congress.
Chapter VI — The Syndical Program of the Socialist Party
The questions that separate the various factions of our party must be specified, which has not yet been done. The whole discussion at Nancy bore on the interpretations of the motions of the Cher and of the Dordogne; but the questions themselves were not, and could not have been, discussed there with the necessary profit. Let us therefore speak among socialists of direct action, of parliamentary action, of the general strike, of daily syndical tactics. But let us specify our ideas on these capital points and not be content with vague motions of no practical scope.
When the Socialist Party has defined its syndicalist theory and practice, it will be easier to see how they differ from the theory and practice of revolutionary or anarchist syndicalism. It is only thus that the misunderstandings existing between the groupings, or between the various members of one and the same grouping, will be able to be dissipated. Most of the time, we use the same words without giving them the same meaning or scope. Let us therefore specify, before all else, the meaning of the words we employ.
It is indeed a difficult task. When one has long remained in vagueness and imprecision, a real effort is needed to make use of exactness. And further, let us recognize, this definition of syndicalism is awkward for the Socialist Party. Like all clear declarations, it will have the consequence of putting the majority in opposition with a part of its minorities, who, still believing themselves socialists, have in reality long ago crossed the limits of our party — for there are limits. By comparing their ideas with those of the majority, they will be convinced that they are no longer socialists in the sense the Party majority means to be; they must therefore either accept the majority’s ideas or change parties.
Whatever solution is adopted, only good can come of it for socialism, whose thought and action will gain in clarity. We must not, in order to keep under one and the same label men animated by surely sincere intentions, let our party lose its force of expansion, all spoiled by suspicions or internal frictions.
The precision of the socialist syndical program will lead all socialists to reflect. Many of those who declare themselves first of all syndicalists today, and who wrongly imagine that the Socialist Party contains groups hostile to syndical action, will at last see clearly what its intentions are. Far from harming unity, this precision can therefore only profit it.
The variety of tendencies that have always been encountered among the socialists comes from the exaggerated value we let take in our minds one idea at the expense of others; ministerialism, which long absorbed the activity of a part of the socialists in the Chamber, was only an exaggeration as dangerous to socialism as the syndicalism so much spoken of today.
And it is in this sense that the word “deviation” applied by Jules Guesde to syndicalism, to ministerialism, to the general strike, is exact. Any idea presented by a group of socialists as effective enough by itself for its application alone to suffice to realize socialism — that is what is in syndicalism a menace of leading socialism astray. It is not syndicalism, but the exaggeration of syndicalism, that constitutes a real menace of deviation.
The partial views that have hitherto distinguished the various socialist parties, Socialist Unity must group into one program and one action. It must fix for parliamentary action, for social reforms, for syndical action, for antimilitarist action, for direct action, their place in its doctrine common to all socialists, who all should reunite there. The socialists present have all in principle been parliamentary, syndicalist, antimilitarist and partisans of direct action, but to varying degrees. It is therefore not a question of seeking to enlist each socialist into a common formula of socialist opinions, by asking each, with good will, to make the sacrifice of one preference or one antipathy at a time.
It is this common bond of socialist opinions on syndical tactics that must be determined without delay.
Various motives militate in favor of the official publication of a syndicalist program of the Socialist Party.
First, from the immediate practical point of view, no one will any longer be able to accuse a major fraction of socialism of being antisyndicalist on the day when all socialists make known how they are syndicalists.
Moreover, has not the Socialist Party set itself the task of being the representative of all workers’ interests? It does not intend to act exclusively by parliamentary and legislative action, but also by economic action, hence syndical and cooperative. Because it has long stopped at parliamentary interests, this would be voluntarily limiting its life, instead of seeking to develop it.
The French socialists have long committed the fault of being uninterested in the syndical movement. The corporate organizations have passed in great numbers under the leadership of personalities independent of the Socialist Party. Thus has been spread among workers the inaccurate idea that, while one organization is in charge of their political interests, another organization, morally and materially independent of it, is in charge of their economic interests.
This is the state of affairs that the delegates to the Congress of Nancy still recognized recently in the preamble of the motion of the Cher; but how did they not think of forcefully recalling that the final goal of socialism is to embrace the whole of working life in the diversity of its needs and aspirations? Do they really consider that the Socialist Party should confine itself to parliamentary action alone? Do they not see the diminished situation in which it would thus be placed vis-à-vis revolutionary syndicalism, which contrariwise knows how to be much more ambitious, which does not stop at syndical questions but lays claim to becoming the inspirer and director of the working class in every domain? Do they not understand that it is quite simply a question of the very prestige of socialism?
It is not, finally, when there grows up beside it day by day with greater force this workers’ movement that is hostile to it, that the party can remain indifferent and confine itself to parliamentary action.
To a new situation must correspond a new tactic.
Syndical preoccupations have taken on so great a place in working-class life that the party must, on pain of moral and material weakening, have a syndical policy of its own and exert influence on the corporate organizations. There is no question of mixing politics with economic questions, any more than of seeking to weaken syndical action, as those who feel themselves threatened wrongly claim; it is simply a question of directing syndical tactics in the same sense as parliamentary tactics — making converge, in a word, the efforts of all organized workers toward a common object.
The political action and the syndical action of one and the same class following different methods carried on by men who are jealous or suspicious of one another — that is what is paradoxical, and this situation can only paralyze workers’ progress. The syndicalists have understood it well; hence they seek to ruin in the proletariat’s mind the prestige of the Socialist Party and of parliamentary action and to substitute the C.G.T. and direct action for it. We do not seek, for our part, to lower syndical action; on the contrary, we wish to make it more powerful by suppressing what we consider as the causes of its present weakness: noisy demonstrations, revolutionary or antipatriotic declarations, all that resounding verbalism which is only the appearance of force.
The day when we have dislodged the anarchists from the C.G.T. and when, by a realist syndicalism — not verbal or metaphysical — we have made the superiority of our method burst forth in the eyes of all wage-earners, syndicalized or not, that day we will have given to our party and to the working class a stability and an interior force which they absolutely lack today and which they will lack as long as division reigns.
Chapter VII — The Revolutionary Syndicalist Program and the Socialist Party
Above all, the Socialist Party must take a stand on the principal points of the revolutionary syndicalist program: the general strike, direct action, sabotage, antipatriotism.
On the first and the last, we already know the feeling of the party majority. The general strike is more a theoretical conception than a really immediately applicable tactic. The revolutionary syndicalists themselves consider it as a special form of the Social Revolution and do not claim it should be practiced without delay. The very divided opinions of the various groups and socialist personalities moreover make a general-strike attempt very unlikely in a truly general form. The general strike may therefore be considered a theoretical concept, useful for its propaganda force, since it imposes itself by its simplicity on the workers’ minds and gives them, in a form accessible to all, the real sense of the power their combined action would have. But it does not seem that we are, in France, near to making the experiment.
Yet in the motion of the Cher, the Socialist Party mentioned the general strike among the principal means of working-class emancipation: but it gave no indication at all of what it meant by this. This is, however, a question on which the Socialist Party must take a clear position, for the prestige of the words “general strike” is considerable. And as we love overly simple concepts, the idea of the effectiveness of the general strike may sustain in many comrades indifference toward daily efforts and partial results.
The socialists are antimilitarists insofar as they reprove the intervention of the national army in conflicts between capital and labor: on this point they are unanimous. They have also, in the motions voted at the congresses of Nancy and Stuttgart, made known their feeling on the international role of militarism and indicated what their collective attitude would be in case of war. But syndicalist antipatriotism has a quite different reach: if we read the Manuel du Soldat, we find there, addressed to young soldiers, advice of an entirely military character. The C.G.T. urges young workers called to arms to desert and to cross the border so as not to obey military discipline for two years; what does the Socialist Party think of this? Does it approve or reprove this propaganda? If it reproves it, (1) let it have the courage to make by speech and pen the necessary counter-propaganda when the anarchist syndicalists organize, at the call of the class, meetings for conscripts. (1)
On the principle of direct action, the party has not yet taken any decision, and this attitude of waiting nonetheless presents real dangers for the development of socialist ideas. It is in fact a very tempting theory: each category of citizens must take charge, by every means, of the defense of its interests vis-à-vis the collectivity or its representatives. Reforms will no longer drag in parliamentary cartons or depend on the good will of the government: those concerned will rise up and, by legal or extralegal action, impose their will on their social adversaries or on the nation itself.
Strikes, professional or political meetings, demonstrations in the street, are all so many applications of the principle of direct action; now the Socialist Party not only does not begrudge them its sympathy, but affirms their absolute legitimacy.
The theory of direct action has its origin in the old idea of decentralization; and if a great number of citizens have rapidly declared themselves its partisans, it is because they saw in this new method the means of freeing themselves at least partially from the heavy tutelage of central power. It is under this aspect that Pouget has many times presented to the public the idea of direct action.
“Is it not absurd,” he wrote for example in the Matin of August 12, 1907, “that the teaching corps does not have the capacity to organize itself, and that it must receive ready-made the laws imposed on it by an assembly that knows nothing of its needs, of its aspirations, and that, blindly, legislates on everything? Would it not be more normal that the teaching corps should be a living organism, meeting on its own, discussing and deliberating on its interests?”
Conservatives — both republicans and reactionaries — are stirred by such a perspective and think of preventing this real disaggregation of the State, centralizing and oppressive, by compression and repression.
And he concluded:
“The compression of State wage-earners will not impede their thrust toward syndicalism. In all the functions absorbed by the State — and thanks to which it gives the illusion of its necessity — the same work of autonomy is being accomplished; in the very midst of the old governmental superfluity grow, in force and in consciousness, the new federative aggregates… and one day will come when these organisms, freeing themselves from the State’s tutelage, the latter, empty of any useful function, will no longer be more than a caput mortuum.”
It is thus that one passes insensibly from decentralization to syndicalism.
The corporate movement among civil servants has as its principal origin the desire for a certain autonomy as well as the need for security and regularity in advancement. It is therefore in last analysis a very marked aspiration to the personal life of each administrative organism, become independent of the often capricious wills of central power. But let an association be formed which one will baptize “syndicate,” let a few syndicalists or anarchists slip into it familiar with revolutionary formulas, and behold civil servants associated with a view to earning more and advancing more regularly whom Pouget and his friends seek immediately to drag into the paths of revolutionary syndicalism!
As examples of direct action, Pouget likes to cite the Dreyfus affair, and also the agitation of employees in favor of the suppression of placement bureaus. These campaigns, organized either to defend an idea or to obtain a material advantage, are very fruitful manifestations of the vitality of certain groupings and of their deep desire for moral or material progress. The Socialist Party can only approve them. But does one not see that to generalize direct action would be to follow a direction opposed to that of the evolution of all human societies, in which political progress has always consisted in making all of social life enter progressively into administrative frameworks? To proclaim direct action as the type-method of social progress is to declare that the path followed hitherto by history is absolutely mistaken, and that we must return to the distant times when each clan, each family sought to seize power or at least to ensure the largest possible share of satisfactions and advantages for itself, without concern for the situation of others: it is to return to the regime of “every man for himself.”
No doubt the origin of this tendency among a great number of wage-earners comes from the fact that the Republic, which had promised much equality and liberty, has given but very little, and from the fact that the egoism of bourgeois politicians, forming a veritable privileged class, has left in deplorable abandonment all socially and economically democratic reforms. Against this parasitic policy, workers wish to rise up by every means, and that is absolutely justified. But they lose sight of the fact that if all categories of citizens claim each to impose their will on the collectivity, there is no longer any social organization: thus the anarchist character of direct action is undeniably affirmed.
The Socialist Party, which follows a parliamentary policy and which intends not to act outside legality but precisely within legality — which it seeks to transform legally — cannot therefore accept direct action without taking account of its manifestations; it must make a distinction between normal and reasoned direct action (strikes, demonstrations of propaganda), accidental and unreflecting direct action — as at Fressenneville — and direct action that claims to substitute itself for any other mode of social action. And whenever the occasion arises, let it not fear to take a clear stand.
I indicated earlier that sabotage is at present more a theory intended to frighten the employer or bourgeois than a tactic regularly put into practice by workers. But, like direct action, sabotage causes the socialist idea to run real dangers, since it leads workers insensibly to violent action considered as the sole means of emancipation. If one considers as normal the voluntary deterioration of industrial materials by the workers charged with working them, one will quickly come to consider as equally acceptable the voluntary deterioration of any objects in expectation of their owners: I heard on this subject the “conscious” militants of the painters’ union recommend to young workers that they should let fall during their work corrosive substances on the carpets or furniture of rich houses. From there to approving fire, as at Fressenneville, there is but a step.
Does the Socialist Party accept these violences? If not, let it proclaim it and polemicize without restraint against those who make themselves their apologists.
Chapter VIII — Syndical Tactics
From the strictly syndical point of view, the Socialist Party must take a stand on the principal points of tactics that separate the various schools of syndicalism, and trace in a general plan the line of conduct it would wish all socialists to follow. Socialist syndical action having to follow the same direction as parliamentary action, it is indispensable that all socialists in their respective syndicates follow the same tactic so as to give a common orientation to the syndical movement of all trades. The Socialist Party must therefore indicate to its members the attitude it recommends to them as the most favorable to the proletariat’s interests on the principal points that revolutionaries and reformists discuss with passion within the syndicates: these are, for example, questions concerning the political neutrality of the syndicate, its numerical importance, its financial power, the institutions of solidarity and providence that grow up around it; those also concerning how strikes should be sought or avoided, their revolutionary or economic character; and finally those concerning the operation and direction of the C.G.T.
At every moment of their syndical life socialists find themselves confronted with these various questions of detail: the most diverse solutions are proposed, among which they are sometimes embarrassed to choose. Obviously these are only general directions of principle that the Socialist Party can propose to its members; the latter will have to draw inspiration from them in daily struggle.
I. Of the political neutrality of syndicates
In the present situation created by the growing influence of the anarchists, the Socialist Party must inscribe at the head of its syndical program the political neutrality of syndicates. The socialists, determined to neutralize the libertarian influence in corporate groups, cannot in fact seek to counterbalance it by an inverse influence; this would be to determine political struggles within the syndicates which could only suffer from them. The socialists will therefore declare themselves clearly partisans of political neutrality in the syndicates, and will pursue its effective observance. No doubt, in this state of political neutrality of the syndicates, they will lead a vigorous campaign against libertarian tendencies, will demand that antiparliamentary propaganda posters disappear from their union secretariat, and that the comrades in charge of the office be asked not to do libertarian education within the very premises of the union.
But even when they had reduced the antiparliamentary syndicalists to silence, the socialists would find themselves confronted with another school of syndicalists who profess no more sympathy for them than the previous one — that of the “pure” syndicalists, for whom the syndicate, organ par excellence of workers’ emancipation, suffices unto itself. These are neither for nor against parliamentarism or political action. (1) But, without doing politics directly antisocialist or antiparliamentary, they may, by the exaggerated faith they proclaim in the social value of corporate groupings, profoundly damage the syndicate members’ regard for parliamentarism and political action, and direct them onto the illusory paths of direct action. The Socialist Party must therefore strive to neutralize their propaganda, as harmful in its eyes as that of the openly antiparliamentary and antisocialist anarchists. The socialists in the syndicates must counterbalance this influence by striving to orient the tactic of each organization in the general direction set by the party.
It is by the daily defense of the socialist syndicalist program that equilibrium can be established, that the influence of the so-called “aparliamentary” syndicalists can be neutralized within the syndicate. The party must moreover, in its general propaganda by press and word, outside the syndicates, devote itself with all its zeal and all its sang-froid to the discussion of aparliamentary syndicalist theory.
II. Of the numerical importance of syndicates
Should one seek to constitute numerous, powerful syndicates with various institutions of providence and solidarity — relief funds, strike funds, unemployment funds, sickness funds, etc., of the type of the English and German syndicates? Or rather, syndicates not very numerous but very united, very independent, principally intended to act in time of strike or revolution, which will be like the revolutionary “trainers” of the unorganized workers’ mass?
From the point of view of strict syndical action, the Socialist Party must favor powerful, numerous syndicates that group the largest possible proportion of wage-earners of the same profession.
The numerically important syndicate, in fact, alone represents accurately the dispositions and state of mind of a trade; only it can take decisions that will have a chance of corresponding most exactly to the majority’s thought, and consequently of being really put into practice by it. Thus may be avoided the fruitless attempts at strikes which discourage workers and embolden employers.
Moreover, a numerous syndical organization gives those who belong to it the exact sense of their real power, whereas small syndicates rarely know on whom they can count; most often they march at random, running the risk of being followed or not by the unsyndicalized workers.
The numerically important syndicate thus becomes the very school of social life. It is to be remarked, generally speaking, that the more powerful a syndicate becomes, the more its policy moves away from spontaneous, unreflecting movements; the syndicalists thus train themselves little by little to realize the exact value of their grouping, and to better know the difficulties they have to overcome. Is it not thus that a “conscious” proletariat is formed?
The numerous syndicate is important not only from the point of view of regulating syndical action; it is always accompanied by annexed institutions which make it penetrate intimately into the daily life of its members. And revolutionary syndicalists commit on this subject a strange contradiction. The syndicate must in their eyes be the very heart of proletarian life, the essential organ. But they do not want this organ to fulfill regular functions in everyday existence. Almost all of them in fact condemn the social institutions which, among the English and Germans and in certain French syndicates, have accompanied the numerical development of the syndicate: relief fund, unemployment or sickness fund, strike fund; (1) all these institutions they treat with contempt as “mutualist” and consider absolutely contrary to their revolutionary principles. But if one removes from the syndicate its social bases, by what is it to be attached to proletarian life? Is it estimated that workers will be more attached at heart to a syndicate in which they will find neither relief in case of sickness or unemployment, nor subsidies in case of strike, than to a syndicate where they would find all these advantages?
The revolutionary aspiration in the abstract, the theoretical conception of the predominant role the syndicate must play on the day of strike or revolution — do these really have, among the average of modern workers, more efficacy in sustaining the conviction and emancipatory drive than the material advantages offered by the various social institutions organized within a powerful and numerous syndicate?
Truly, this is to reason abstractly about a theoretical type of modern worker, who has no relation to living reality. The numerous, powerful, rich syndicate, solidly supported by relief funds, by unemployment or sickness funds, by a large strike fund, is the one that will most attract workers and hold the largest place in their lives; they will feel attached to it by sentiment and interest and will rise to defend it with the most energy and lasting conviction. (1)
Is one moreover entitled to say that such a syndicate is by essence conservative, bourgeois, that it must fatally follow the same evolution as those English Trade-Unions — held in such low esteem by French revolutionary syndicalists? Before passing this judgment, one must at least take account of the diversity of temperaments and not lose sight of the fact that the English worker does not have behind him the past of revolutionary efforts of the French worker. Moreover, why should one not succeed by propaganda in maintaining the spirit of emancipation alive in numerous syndicates? The revolutionaries who fear the embourgeoisement of these syndicates will only have to play in them their role of revolutionary “trainers,” and if they go about it well, they may be assured of success. (1)
Should syndicates be granted the right to own property, with all its consequences? It is a question already much discussed. Because Millerand and the independent socialists are favorable to it, many groups of socialist unity have declared themselves opposed. Vaillant fears, it is said, that the faculty of owning property would profoundly modify the syndicates’ tendencies, which, penetrated by the “proprietary” spirit — that is, bourgeois and conservative — would no longer concern themselves with anything but their petty personal interests.
One must truly have only very limited confidence in the syndical and socialist convictions of French workers, or hold to be very superficial their desires for material and moral well-being, to estimate that the minimal advantages furnished by a few institutions of solidarity, or that the love of collective property, can deaden in them all desire for emancipation!
III. Of the opportunity and frequency of strikes
Here are two points that demand particularly attentive examination. Strikes are normally more frequent in certain industries than in others. Building is the industry where strikes are most frequent; in the single month of April 1907, there were 55 strikes in this industry in France. The textile industry counted 42 in the same month. The average of strikes in other industries is generally less than half of this.
How are so many strikes undertaken? What serious motives lead militants to determine such frequent crises? Citizen V. Renard, secretary of the textile federation, from whom I borrowed the figures above, answers these questions in L’Humanité of June 17, 1907:
“In textiles, strikes are carried out come what may, on a whim, without worrying whether a market change is coming, without knowing whether warehouses are not gorged with manufactured products and whether, consequently, the cessation of work will not be merely temporarily the affair of the employers as well as the workers. Most often the strikers are not syndicalists; they have no resistance fund, no clearly established or definitively settled demands, but a slight inquietude has caused the cup to overflow that was already full; one is weary of enduring more, one abandons work in a moment of anger, one throws the handle after the axe. Bah! It has gone on long enough: a strike committee will be formed which will draw up demands, and then subscription lists will be set up and an appeal will be made to public opinion. The strike, in these conditions, is no longer a methodical action; it is only a movement of anger, of protest, of revolt…
“To what attribute this regrettable state of things if not to the lack, the inadequacy of organization, in general, of the working class and of the workers of the textile industry in particular?
“In the textile industry, of 850,000 workers, of whom more than 500,000 are women and children, there are scarcely more than 30,000 workers who are syndicalized and federated…
“It would nevertheless be necessary for this to take another turn. No doubt one cannot, at one stroke, react against this disastrous tendency, but little by little, the organized must make the others understand that the strike thus practiced can only bring despair and disillusion. And every time so inconsistent, so chaotic a movement is on the horizon, they should declare to the unsyndicalized that their first duty and interest is to join the syndicate, and, by imitating them, to be in a position to choose the moment when the syndicate, the local union, the federation will judge the struggle propitious and capable of striking the adversary at his vulnerable point.
“Demands must be drawn up in advance, negotiations engaged, and, in case of impossibility of settling the causes of disagreement amicably, then it will be the struggle, but the struggle willed by the employers, the struggle sustained and directed by syndical organizations, federal and confederal, alone capable of carrying it through.
“Wherever demands are clearly established, where strike action is supported by a serious organization, workers obtain results. The 5,000 strikers of Werwicq-Halluin, for more than four months, have been backed by a syndicate of 1,200 members as well as by the Belgian and French textile federations; thus they have just returned victorious with an increase of 6 to 8 francs 50 per week and better working conditions; likewise the ribbon-makers of Comines, the weavers and spinners of Lavelanet, the hand-weavers of Cambrésis, the silk-weavers of the southeast who, at Lyon, Voiron, Moirans, by their demands as well as by a tariff scale for piecework, have obtained appreciable raises. At Lyon, the weavers have just obtained the English week of 55 hours during the fine season, from May 1 to October 1; this is a step forward toward the eight-hour day.
“The strikes are there, undeniable!
“To succeed and to avoid a host of exhausting and debilitating strikes for all, something other than skeleton syndicates is needed; organization and method are needed, the prior understanding of the syndicate members with their syndicate, and that the latter act in the same way with their federation.
“Apart from this, there can only be vain agitations, sterile efforts, useless suffering, and all the means of arriving at nothing fertile, useful, or lasting.”
This article of Renard deserved to be cited: it contains documents furnished by a syndicalist and socialist militant who is well placed to appraise with exactness the present tendencies of a great number of workers and the defects of a method, or rather the dangers of an absence of method.
The Socialist Party, while using every occasion to urge citizens to enter the syndicate of their specialty, will put its members on guard against the “exhausting and debilitating” strikes that Renard speaks of and that are so frequently declared for motives of no scope. It must say — through the mouth of its militants — that such strikes brusquely and lightly declared are harmful; it must rise up, within syndical councils, against the declaration of strikes that seem to it insufficiently prepared or, for other motives, doomed to failure. And by this moderating action, the socialists will render an inestimable service to the syndical movement, whose prestige and real efficacy they will help to maintain.
Chapter IX — Proportional Representation
What precedes already applies in large part to the action of socialists in the C.G.T.; if they spread out in mass into their respective professional organizations, if they all follow the same syndical direction, they will naturally modify the spirit of the C.G.T. In federation councils, their action must be very energetic and very sustained, for it is there that the most passionate battles are waged, those whose failures have the most serious consequences.
There is one very important point that for the moment must especially attract the attention and activity of socialists in the C.G.T.: the question of Proportional Representation in corporate congresses. Here there can be no disagreement, and all socialists, of whatever shade, must march for proportional representation, or, if one prefers, for as exact a representation as possible of the syndicalists in the votes cast by their delegates at congresses. We know that hitherto these votes have been of so disconcerting an inexactitude: the number of votes to which the various syndicates are entitled is not proportional to their numerical importance. Now this vicious mode of representation, the present leaders of the C.G.T. do everything they can to maintain, for they and their party profit from it. The socialists must therefore work ardently to obtain this reform of simple equity. Would it be understood that, claiming proportional representation in political elections, the Socialist Party should not demand its application in syndical questions and that it should declare itself in solidarity with this syndicalist minority that wishes to retain the leadership of the C.G.T. abusively?
Pouget and Guérard have recently in L’Humanité discussed the question again, already very thoroughly treated at the Bourges Congress.
Here are the principal passages of these two articles:
First of all,
writes Pouget in L’Humanité of May 27, 1907,
“there is a need not to confuse R.P. from the political point of view and R.P. from the economic point of view. We know that, for political elections, R.P. requires a special system of vote calculation, to allow a certain number of voters not represented by the unitary vote to have representatives.
“From the economic point of view, R.P. does not present itself in this aspect. Those who proclaim it for the syndicates ask this: in a corporate Congress or Confederal Committee, a delegate will have a number of votes increasing with the number of dues-payers in his organization… In this alone consists syndical R.P.! And to show, by an example, the innovation and the mode of voting, it suffices to indicate that if, in a grouping of 10,000 members, there were 6,000 against the propositions of the Congress, and the delegate, the latter would vote in the Congress or at the Confederal Committee in the name of the bloc of 10,000, although 4,000 had been of a contrary opinion.”
Nothing would prevent really applying proportional representation of opinions in the election of delegates of each organization to congresses, as has been done, for example, for France, at the Stuttgart socialist congress. Of 20 votes, 11 were attributed to the majority and 9 to the minority. It would not be difficult to find a mode of representation as proportional for delegates to corporate congresses. If hitherto the partisans of R.P. at the C.G.T. assembly have not asked for the application of R.P. in the election of delegates, it is easy to repair their omission, to thus complete their project. And Pouget’s objection will fall away.
This observed, let us analyze the mechanism of the operation of the C.G.T., an exposition that will suffice to demonstrate the superiority over the system wrongly baptized “proportional representation.”
The Confederation is an organism of three levels: syndicates, federations, confederation.
At the base, there is the syndicate, within which the unit of grouping is the syndicate member; all syndicate members are equivalent, whether they belong to large or small, strong or weak ones.
At the second level, there is the corporate federation, within which the unit of grouping is the syndicate; here too, all syndicates are equivalent, whether large or small, strong or weak.
At the third level, there is the confederal committee, and here, the unit of grouping is the syndicate, that is, they are equivalent, whatever their particular force.
If it is indisputable that the syndicate member makes the unit of the syndical grouping and that all syndicate members are equivalent, it is not the same with syndicates as regards federations. It is not exact that all the syndicates included in a federation are equivalent, since on the contrary they have varied effectives, group a variable percentage of workers according to localities, and consequently have a different syndical value. It is therefore in the election to federal councils that R.P. must first be applied: here practical implementation is easy, since it concerns groupings of the same kind, easily comparable to each other: in the attribution of votes to each syndicate, account will be taken of the number of syndicate members and of the ratio between the number of syndicate members and the total of workers of the same specialty in the locality.
The situation must be the same for federations with regard to the Confederation. They must not all be equivalent, since they are of unequal importance both in numbers and in percentage of unionized workers.
In such an amalgam, the social unit is successively the syndicate member, the syndicate, the federation — both of which, in the same plane and comparatively, have the same value. To wish, at the third level, to establish a system of voting that would claim to take account of the true number of federations would be to falsify the equilibrium of the whole federative organism. In fact, difficulties would immediately arise.
The Match Workers’ Federation, for example, which counts 1,500 members, groups 90% of the workers of the corporation; beside it, the Slate Workers’ Federation, with 6,000 dues-payers, probably groups only 25% of the corporate effective; could it not appear illogical that a Federation grouping 50% of unionized workers should have a more preponderant voice than one grouping 90%? What is more, tomorrow, when the workers of the land, who are already fairly numerous in the Confederation, come to it in considerable masses, will it be logical for them to have a preponderant voice, on the pretext that their effective will exceed that of all the federations of industry combined?
It would surely be illogical to apply the R.P. system only at the third level. Hence I indicated earlier where, in my opinion, the application of R.P. should logically begin.
The question of the ratio between the number of syndicate members and the total of workers of the trade must surely be taken into consideration. To give it practical sanction, one need only take account in the attribution of votes to each federation of the approximate ratio between syndicate members and the total of workers. We have agreed to debate at a fair price: one may say, for example, that this proportionality will be represented by a coefficient fixed arbitrarily by common agreement:
Syndicates grouping up to 20% of the total of workers: coefficient 1; up to 50: coefficient 2; up to 75%: coefficient 3; up to 100%: coefficient 4. That is, in the case cited by Pouget the votes of the 1,500 match worker syndicate members (90%) will be equivalent to 1,500 × 4 = 6,000, while those of the 6,000 slate workers (50%) will be equivalent to 6,000 × 2 = 12,000. Thus a match worker, by reason of the high proportion of syndicate members in his industry, is worth twice as much, from the point of view of confederal votes, as a slate worker, whose syndicate includes a smaller proportion of workers in that industry. But would it be equitable that, possessing more importance, 1,500 match worker syndicate members, whose syndical recruitment is no doubt easier than that of the slate workers because of the centralization and étatization of that industry, should have in discussions the same weight as 6,000 slate workers? Obviously not, for the 6,000 slate workers may have much more syndical merit in grouping 50% of the workers of their trade than the match workers in grouping 90% of theirs.
These are surely very delicate estimations; no one can claim absolute exactness, but there are nevertheless broad general lines on which it is possible, with a little good will, to come to agreement.
Pouget finally raises in this paragraph one of the most serious questions of the future for the C.G.T. The day when the workers of the land join the confederation in mass, the development and orientation of the latter will no doubt undergo serious modifications. Who knows whether its very existence as central and directing organism of the working class will not be threatened? The divisions of tendencies in the syndicates of industrial workers are already deep enough for a great part of corporate organizations to free themselves resolutely from confederal legislation, and while still belonging to the C.G.T., not to follow in any way the general advice of its directing committee. It is likely that, when the workers of the land have entered the C.G.T., they will not follow the directives of the confederal committee any more faithfully than certain industrial workers, if these are not in conformity with their interests and their own tendencies. The C.G.T. will have to renounce then, on pain of dislocation, being anything but a vast administrative grouping of all the workers of France whose situations, temperaments, interests and aspirations will be so diverse that a common and really coordinated action, in entirely particular — almost exceptional — conditions, will be materially impossible.
The anarchists are opposed to the numerical augmentation of the syndicates: they are wary of it. In the same way they must fear seeing the C.G.T. encompass too great a number of organizations.
This observed, let us see — and this always by examples — whether it is exact that the “reformist” element is, as some claim, crushed.
It was at the Congress of Bourges, in 1904, that the question of R.P. was thoroughly discussed and that the revolutionary orientation of the Confederation was specified. At this Congress, the Federation of the Book, which pays for 10,000 members, had 25 mandates, that is one vote per 80 syndicate members. The National Union of Railway Workers paying for 58 mandates, that is one vote per 280 syndicate members. On the revolutionary side, the Federation of Match Workers had 6 mandates, or one vote per 250 syndicate members; the Federation of Slate Workers had 3 mandates, or, for its 6,000 members, one vote per 1,500; the Federation of the Marine, which pays for 12,000 members, had 5 mandates, or one per 2,000 syndicate members.
It is useless to insist further. The value of these figures is affirmed by their own statement. It is therefore inaccurate to claim that there is oppression of supposed reformist majorities by a mechanical revolutionary minority.
This argument is manifestly insufficient: Pouget tells us that some reformist syndicates have a delegate for a smaller number of members than certain revolutionary syndicates: is this a sufficient reason to consider that this is an invariable rule and that, with an equal number of members, all reformist organizations are favored over revolutionary ones? Moreover, these documents cited by Pouget turn against him; it is unacceptable for one organization to be entitled to a delegate for 2,000 syndicate members while another should be entitled to a delegate for 80. Can Pouget still defend as excellent a mode of representation that resolutely runs counter to all equity?
He believes, perhaps, that he can get out of it cheaply at the end of his article with the following lines:
“A mode of voting is worth its simplicity. The mode adopted by the Confederation, of an infinite suppleness, allows the syndicates to manifest their orientation through the congresses and, at the Federations, to sanction — or condemn — the indications of the congresses by the orientation they give to the Confederal Committee.”
“It establishes, loyally and frankly, equilibrium and equality between all the elements at all levels of the syndical organism. What is to be substituted for it?
“A system that, for an organization rich in the money it needs to bluff, would allow practical delegates. This system has moreover a few rare applications, and the results are pitiful. As an example, it is enough to cite the Federation of Miners: the disordered and incoherent movements that this trade has suffered for several years are the consequence of the R.P. that is practiced there, and that allows unscrupulous politicians to lay down the law in the federal organization.”
A summary execution. So if among the miners there are “disordered and incoherent movements” — read deep divisions and deplorable rivalries — it is the consequence of R.P. and it “allows unscrupulous politicians to lay down the law in the federal organization”? This could be true if powers were given to him most often without mandate. He will therefore vote for everyone according to his particular preferences, those of Pas-de-Calais and elsewhere, in order to dislodge the socialists who are at the head of certain powerful syndicates. It is a struggle of political and syndical tendencies. And the mode of representation in the congresses has nothing to do with it.
To Pouget’s figures, Guérard, secretary general of the railway workers’ union, opposes others. Humanité, 31 May 1907:
“‘It is useless to insist further,’ says Pouget. On the contrary, we must pursue the demonstration to the end and we will arrive at this evident finding that the majority can be obtained, in a Congress, by the representatives of the minority.
“At the Congress of Amiens, where about 300,000 syndicate members were represented, certain syndicates had one vote per 31 members, while others equally had one vote per 3,000 members. The coopers, the brushmakers, the food workers, the masons, the building, the leather and skins, totaling together 13,850 members, had 206 votes, while the slate workers’ and marine syndicates, with 18,000 members, had, all in all, only 10 votes. At the same Congress, a minority of 45,000 syndicate members out of 300,000 had a number of votes sufficient to attain the majority in the votes.
“To know the tendencies of the proletariat, one is obliged to engage in a complicated calculation, which would give all the less guarantee since the votes, as I have indicated, are cast by delegates who have most often received them without mandate. He will therefore vote for everyone according to his particular preferences,
[p. 112 — continued]
“And then, by a singular anomaly, the members of the Confederal Committee have the right, which they use in the Congresses, to represent syndicates and thus to participate in the votes on their own management.
“Finally, it must also be said, in our Congresses, the delegates very quickly forget that they are the representatives, the mandataries of their syndicates; they express much more their personal opinion than they translate that of their mandators. Subjected in spite of themselves to the surrounding influence, exalted by audacious affirmations that correspond to their intimate sentiments, they have, for the most part, the concern not to seem less revolutionary than their comrades and, perhaps also, the fear of seeing the organization they represent accused of an insufficiently bright diligence, in view of the mass of classifications certain syndicalists possess. This often leads them to exceed their mandate and to commit their organization to a path it would not follow.
“Reasonably, in these conditions, can one maintain that the Congresses give precise indications of which the central organism may usefully draw inspiration?
“The Confederation, constituted at a time when syndicates were, for the most part, in an embryonic state, where federations existed little or not at all, must it be frozen in an immutable system?…
“To act with certainty, one must have exact knowledge of the workers’ orientation, with as precise an indication as possible of the number of wills expressed in one direction or the other.
“It is therefore indispensable, in my opinion, to substitute, in the Congresses as in the Confederal Committee, for the vote per syndical unit, the vote proportional to the number of members of each grouping. This is the method adopted by workers’ organizations in neighboring countries, and which many French syndicates already practice.
“It will also be necessary to limit, for each delegate, the number of mandates and to seek another mode of election of the Confederal Committee, in order to place the latter under the direct control and effective sanction of the totality of workers’ groupings.
“The question is surely complex, I do not hide it from myself. Is this a reason not to study and resolve it?
“The confederal Congresses give the deceptive impression that the revolution is near and that it requires no more than an easy gesture. Why illude ourselves on this point?”
For the various motives that precede, the Socialist Party must be a partisan of Proportional Representation and make a serious effort to have it applied in all corporate congresses.
Chapter X — Conclusion
The political preoccupations that throughout the nineteenth century especially occupied the attention and activity of the proletariat are for the moment placed in the background. The workers’ movement, dominated by the syndical idea, affirms more and more its more exclusively economic character. The political conquests the Proletariat has made — universal suffrage in particular, over which most foreign proletariats are still carrying on the most ardent struggles — no longer appear with the emancipatory virtue that was attributed to them in the last century. Thus is explained how that parliamentary disaffection, accompanied by syndicalist convictions, has been able to penetrate an important group of the Socialist Party. A group important in the C.G.T. But all this movement of economic and syndicalist preoccupations is much more ideological than practical. Most of the socialists who have engaged the party in the syndicalist path have done so without seeing it clearly, more or less circumspect, more or less precise: many have done so as mere journalists whom an idea attracts and who let themselves be carried away by it. They have proclaimed the theoretical advantages of direct action or of the general strike, which have become among us current expressions that are used without knowing the exact meaning or the practical scope. And they have neglected to study or to prepare the effective realization of this syndicalism, which is far from being reduced, as they say, to two or three simple concepts. The questions that daily confront militants have only distant connections with antipatriotism or the revolutionary general strike. Efforts for the raising of wages, for the application of workers’ laws, for the reduction of unemployment — these are as many practical and immediate problems that interest the activity of syndicalist militants. And yet the importance taken in the minds of many syndicalists by general ideas is so exaggerated that it seems as though, among many of them, little time or energy is left available for the examination and realization of daily questions. Now, to play a capital role in its evolution, syndicalism must be practical, must concern itself with today’s action, with positive results; if it continues to wander in the domains of theory, it will rapidly lose in the eyes of workers the prestige it enjoys today. It will share the fate of all the verbalisms that preceded it. Do not many of us have the feeling that a precious time has been lost by those who preceded us in socialist propaganda in too long and too frequent discussions on general ideas, whose theoretical solution was in no way to contribute to the progress of the proletariat?
Let us then be careful not to let socialism direct itself toward a new ideology; let us take from syndicalism what is realizable in it and seek to put it into practice. There are already among the socialists calling themselves syndicalists too great a number of people who have lost sight of this economic, positive side of syndicalism. The true syndicalist, in my eyes, must be a convinced general-strikist, a resolute partisan of direct action or an uncompromising antipatriot. The platonic adhesion to vague formulas suffices for them to characterize “the conscious worker.” The power of the syndicate by the number of its members and the institutions of solidarity — all this is, they think, only secondary; and it is thus that I have attended, in sections of the party, endless discussions on the theories of syndicalism among members of minuscule syndicates which in time of strike had to tighten their belts and implore the help of other trades. (1)
Syndicalism of words constitutes a real danger for the Socialist Party, for on the one hand it cannot lead to anything serious in the domain of facts, since it is above all verbal; and moreover its lack of success would attract for the socialist idea, with which it is more and more confounded, a resounding “failure.”
It is therefore important, and one cannot repeat it too often, to direct socialism toward a positive syndicalism, for it is the only one that can develop its forces. This is the syndicalism of which the Socialist Party must make itself the principal support by directing all its members, in one and the same tactic, toward the concrete actions which are the necessary condition of all social progress.
The unification of the Socialist Party must facilitate in a large measure the establishment of a syndical program and of a syndical tactic common to all socialists.
What has allowed the anarchists to introduce themselves into the C.G.T. is precisely the division of socialist groups that had opposed syndical conceptions.
If the socialists are now united, it is because they have, or are ready to have, programs common on the principal questions that formerly divided them. And the syndical question, which has taken on such great importance among contemporary workers’ problems, must be the object of all their preoccupations.
If the sincere efforts of the old socialist factions to come to an understanding on the syndical question of socialism were not to succeed, each remaining on his former positions, this would surely be the proof that socialist unity, instead of contributing to increase the penetrative force of the party, would weaken it on the contrary by paralyzing sincere action.
I hope to have replied clearly enough to the question Renaudel posed in Le Socialiste of September 29, following an article by Marius André that appeared in the previous issue.
“Practically,”
he wrote,
“what can we achieve? Marius André tells us: ‘To act in the syndical organization first so that its cadres may fill up with ever more compact troops, then so that these troops may become more and more penetrated with the enthusiasm and the spirit of sacrifice inspired by the socialist ideal.’
“Very well, we are in agreement, and I imagine that one does not insult us by supposing that we want neither recruitment nor syndical education. But André does not tell us at all how in his mind he will establish the close relations with the syndical organisms.”
It is by the penetration of the socialist spirit into the syndical organizations. It is not possible to establish closer relations. No treaty, no convention. We have no authorization to ask of anyone. We enter the syndicates in mass and we act there in conformity with the syndicalist program of our party.
“Of relations, we also want some,”
Renaudel continues,
“but for the moment, the march of events is enough for us. We think everything is going well, that we have served the cause of good relations by maintaining the Syndical Tribune in its form in L’Humanité, that for example the Congress of Metallurgy has served it on its side, without subordination or distrust, when, on this same question, it approved the acts of citizen Latapie.
“We think that at the Confederation and the Party, many misunderstandings are being attenuated. We think that by acting thus for the best, without compromising the necessary unity of the syndical movement. This part of the Stuttgart resolution does not appear to us only as a clause of style. We may, moreover, return to it. But, as of now, what happened at the Congress of Metallurgy, concerning the relations of the syndicates and the Party, seems to us very significant. No, we will not let the necessary unity of the syndical movement be compromised.”
Surely, all of us who believe in the great value of the syndicalist movement would see with sorrow those “particular” syndicates form which were spoken of at the libertarian congress of Amsterdam held last August. The picture of French syndicalism that Niel painted melodramatically for us in L’Humanité of September 26 alarms us all: the C.G.T. divided into three fragments, socialist, anarchist, and syndicalist-neutral; (1) the workers’ forces, so painfully united, again divided by political passions — what a setback, what weakening!
But suppose we do not act, that we even think like Renaudel that all is well. What will happen? We will see accentuate the movement that draws the syndicalists out of socialism’s orbit, into the dependence of anarchism.
Surely, when Renaudel speaks to us of syndical unity, he does not mean syndical unity led by the anarchists. He would prefer strong independent socialist syndicates to an exclusively anarchist syndical unity.
Ah! I know well that it is ridiculous to speak always of the anarchist danger. In the eyes of certain militants, it is a somewhat disloyal pressure tactic intended to moderate socialist ardors by the fear of a word. Renaudel is impatient to hear this word always in the mouth of the Guesdists:
“I regret this,” he exclaims, “we shall not let it be said that one is anarchist because one does not say one is partisan of the general strike or because one is not doing antimilitarism.”
Understood. But the anarchists who are at the head of the C.G.T. and of the syndicates are general-strikist and antimilitarist in their manner, which is not that of Renaudel or my own: the propaganda they carry on for the general strike or antimilitarism is not that which we would wish carried on. But if the socialist syndicates are not in the C.G.T. to apply their socialist ideas there… It is therefore accurate to say, whatever Renaudel may think, that the direct action, the general strike, the antimilitarism propagated by the Confederal Committee are indeed anarchist theories, since it is anarchists who do so, and entirely obviously.
It is not to Renaudel that one must recall that there are a thousand manners of being or of calling oneself partisan of the general strike or of antimilitarism. And it is precisely the similarity of terms used by socialists and anarchists that facilitates confusion and constitutes a real danger for socialism. Here is a socialist worker, partisan of the general strike, who joins a syndicate led by a libertarian committee; he will hear employed at his syndicate words familiar to him, he will applaud the praise given by anarchists of the general strike or of direct action; and insensibly, he will pass from socialism to anarchism. What critical knowledge of these questions he would need to have in order to stop in time and to say: “Here I stop, for I am about to cross the limits of my party.” The latter never having told him how far it intended to go, how could the worker of whom I speak discern where socialism ends and where anarchism begins?
The indispensable condition for realizing this program is naturally that the socialists acquire the numerical and moral force they do not yet have in many syndicates. The party has already indicated in its organic articles that it recommended to all socialists to join the syndicate of their trade. But this adhesion would be dangerous if it had as its only consequence to swell the proletarian troops that will be led into combat by anarchists or antiparliamentarians. It is necessary that the socialist members of the syndicates follow a socialist policy there.
At present, there are in many syndicates socialists who reprove such or such tactics proposed by the anarchists, but who, either because they do not have ready all the arguments to invoke in favor of their own conception, or because they do not dare to rise up against a proposition of “revolutionary” appearance for fear of being taxed with moderatism, keep silent and let decisions be adopted which they condemn. Well, it may be hoped that with the support of the party, whose directing thought they will know and which will furnish them with arguments, the socialists will be able to take back in the syndicates first place by not fearing to say frankly what they think of propositions of outbidding and to criticize them with the desirable vivacity.
The question that arises today is this: will the anarchist spirit dominate the socialist spirit in syndical evolution? This is the general form in which it presents itself to us. The anarchists are doing everything they can to penetrate the syndical organizations with their ideas: it is through them that antipatriotism, the general strike, antiparliamentarism, the idea that the syndicate will suffice entirely to workers’ emancipation — it is through them that all these ideas have been introduced into the syndicates: they have thus carried on propaganda of a clearly political character, intended to enlist definitively among the syndicalized workers numerous adhesions to the libertarian movement.
Griffuelhes may well say that the C.G.T. has never made any officially libertarian or anarchist declaration; the fact will nonetheless remain indisputable that the anarchists are openly seeking to extend each day their already very appreciable influence in all the syndical organizations.
Those who, like Niel, (1) regret that socialists and anarchists seek to influence the syndicalist movement are surely animated by excellent intentions; they would wish that things were not as they are, that situations were not what they are. But what practical solution can these regrets have? Do we see the Pougets, the Griffuelhes, the Latapies, the Merrheims leaving the positions they have reached by sustained efforts? It would be on their part a disinterested gesture, but those among them who are sincere could not abandon the struggle without considering themselves traitors to their ideas and their party.
Since then these militants will not voluntarily leave the positions they occupy, shall we let them make syndical action a dependency of anarchist action?
Vaillant, Lagardelle, Renaudel, Jaurès too, answer “yes.” They proclaim — which is manifestly erroneous — that the relations between the C.G.T. and the Socialist Party are fully satisfactory. And they refuse to intervene in the syndical movement. This attitude is explained in some by their very pronounced sympathy for the syndicalist method which, in their eyes, constitutes the workers’ method of the future; — does it not have its origin, in the deputy of Carmaux, in the conviction that he will be able, by apparent concessions, to make himself progressively master of that chaotic syndicalist movement, which nonetheless carries within itself so many elements of life and in which socialism will be able to draw new forces? But would this not be to expose socialism to real dangers by playing thus at being the cleverest with demagogues to whom the unreasoned sympathies of so many proletarians currently go?
Moreover, the Guesdists who recommend union between the syndicates and the party take no account of the present composition of the syndicates: it has been said and said again: what good is it to recommend union between two parties if one of them does not want it?
In order not to let ourselves be definitively evicted from the direction of the syndicates, it is indispensable that the socialists penetrate them in mass to counterbalance by number and by worth the anarchist or anarchizing syndicalists.
They must also and above all have a syndical policy to oppose to the anarchists’ policy, and in accordance with which all unionized socialists will order themselves and act.
ÉTIENNE BUISSON
We gave the permission to print after corrections for twelve hundred copies of this third cahier and for twelve copies on Whatman paper on Tuesday, October 29, 1907.
The publisher: CHARLES PÉGUY
This cahier was composed and printed by unionized workers.
Suresnes. — Printing house ERNEST PAYEN, 13 rue Pierre-Dupont. — 2080