French Syndicalism

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 4, 1 May 1913, Page 3

French Syndicalism

THE CONFEDERATION GENERAL DU TRAVAIL

(BY E. J. B. ALLEN)

Since all the world talks of Syndicalism, and more particularly in view of the imp ending changes in the Labour movement in New Zealand, a few facts pertaining to the General Confederation of Labour of France may be of interest to Australasian workers. This outline will be purely history and no polemics will be attempted nor efforts made to draw analogies which may prove to be false.

I am largely indebted to Paul Delsalle’s admirable little pamphlet, “ La Confederation Generate du Travail ; Historique, Constitution, But, Moyens, ’ ’ for the information in this article.

To give the history of the C.G.T., as it is familiarly known in Europe, it is necessary to recall the old International Workingmen’s Association, particularly the conference held in the St. Martin’s Town Hall, London, in 1864, where the International was created. The dissensions and splits caused by the authoritarianism of Marx and Engels, and the disputes over politics between Marx and Bakounine, the creation of the Jura Federation of the International Association, composed entirely of Direct Actionists, all played a part in the creation of French Syndicalism. After the terrible slaughter and coercion of the Parisian workers on the defeat of the Commune of 1871, the sections of the International, and other working class organisations, were crushed out for the time being. However, in 1876 a congress was held in Paris, at which both a number of unions and cooperative societies were represented. Co-operation, reforms and various benefits were discussed; nothing at all revolutionary was mentioned. In spite of several sittings of this combination it had no influence on the AVorld of Labour generally.

Concurrently with this Syndicalist-Co-operative movement there was born a Socialist party, with Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue as chiefs. Lafargue, be it noted, had played a wretched part in denouncing Spanish members of the old International to the police when they refused to bow to the dictates of the politicians, as is shown so clearly by James Guillaume in his “ Histoire du Federation Jurassiene.”

Two years later, in 1878, when the young unions were holding a congress, Lafargue and Guesde insisted upon the new Socialist Party being represented. However, the Government interdicted the congress and prosecuted the organisers, and thus unceremoniously squashed the pretentions of the political “ directors” of the Working Class. The following year in Marseilles a number of unions and political groups united in a congress. At the same time a certain number of workers’ associations held, during the year, at Bordeaux, a congress. These unions refused to take the name of Socialist, which had become identified with parliamentarism, and declared that the Proletariat carried within themselves the instrument of their own emancipation. The congress was continued half-yearly, at Havre in 1880, at Paris and Rheims in 1881, at Bordeaux and at St, Etienne in 1882, at Paris in 1883, at Roanne and at Roubaix in 1884, and this congress refused to take part in the discussion between the different Socialist factions, between the Possiblist Party and the Guedist. Some unions were strongly represented in the Possiblist Party, but without having any marked effect upon the Union Movement of that period. In 1884 the unions developed; they grew in all the large industrial centres; their activities took shape, and Waldeck-Rousseau, the Premier, like a good politician, after finding that in France, as in England, unions ivoidd grow, whether legally sanctioned or not, legalised the existence of bodies he could not crush. He gave to the unions the doubtful benefit of the protection of the Law, which, Delsalle sagely remarks, was proof evident, before the phrase, of the necessity of Direct Action.

Waldeck-Rousseau hoped to turn the unions into purely benefit societies, and, in fact, make them instruments for the conservation of social peace, much as our politically-controlled arbitration unions are here. Unluckily for the capitalists, however, this wish was not realised, and unionism, or Syndicalism, became the instrument of the Class Struggle which we now know it to be.

Once legalised, many new unions came into existence, but most of them had no definite point of view with regard either to ideas or action. From 1886 to 1892 a number of congresses were held, composed both of parties and unions. The congress held at St. Etienne in 1892 decided to create the Federation des Bourses du Travail; (these, which correspond, roughly, to our Trades Councils), immediately had 14 Bourses join. From that day there was in France a really autonomous Syndicalist movement.

This was especially due to the untiring work of Fernand Pelloutier, an anarchist, who sought to inspire the ideas of Michael Bakounine’s federalism. Pelloutier’s own works upon the Bourses du Travail deserve to be read by all students of the French Revolutionary Movement.

Parallel to the development of the Bourses du Travail, which grouped the workers locally, there was a growth of Federations d’ Industrie, and of trades that grouped the workers nationally. The holding of the political-unionist'congress and the Congress of the Bourses du Travail enervated the movement; neither would give way to the other. A congress was held at Nantes; the “ Federation des Bourses du Travail” organised at the same date, and in the same time, a second congress which smashed the fusion, in spite of the opposition of the “ Federation des Syndicates” which was affiliated to the political organisation. This congress voted by a large majority in favour of the Revolutionary General Strike, which had been condemned by the old political congress, and thus the rupture between the economic organisation and the political became definite. The following year—lß9s—after an ardent discussion, the congress, held at Limoges, adopted by a

large majority the first article of the rules of the new organisation, also concluding with “ The elements constituting the Confederation do so holding themselves outside of all political schools at this day the Confederation General du Travail is created.”

(Continued next month.)