French Syndicalism

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 July 1913, Page 3

French Syndicalism

THE CONFEDERATION GENERAL DU TRAVAIL

(BY E. J. B. ALLEN)

3. Strongly educated, rendered always more conscious, tlie workers augment the power and revolutionary intensity of the Proletariat by means of revolutionary gymnastics of action; they fight always in the breech against the bourgeois state, and do not count upon so-called “ democratic reforms.” They know they will get more and more of these in proportion as they augment their revolutionary power, which must be solely by the Proletariat being economically organised.

Direct Action is employed, not without success. No doubt it is by Direct Action that the workers will win their emancipation. Direct Action —that is to say, pressure exterior to the bourgeois state, struggle upon the true and sole field of class, exploited against exploiter, without interposed, persons —that is the tactics employed by the Confederation.

Thus the state of permanent struggle which is forcibly accentuated by the Proletariat necessarily calls forth revolutionary acts, but it is certain—and this is contrary to what is generally affirmed—Direct Aetion does not signify inevitable violence. Direct Action has in itself a revolutionary virtue if it has for its object the changing of the present social system. This conception of the movement inevitably brings forth a state of struggle that translates itself by a series of uninterrupted strikes, the strike being a form of action engendered by the capitalist regime itself. Repeated strikes have of themselves, and are at the -same time a powerful educational factor, a most effective education.

Then there is the boycott and sabotage which the worker can use though Messieurs the Capitalists, of all categories, condemn them vehemently. Strikes become more and more generalised, and the whole action and propaganda of the Confederation is to perfect the means of making a general strike, and this has been ratified by successive congresses that have been held for the last ten years.

The General Strike, the arrest complete, unanimous and simultaneous, of production, renders impossible of normal functioning the whole of capitalist society. The workers, having become conscious of their power, come out with a common accord —from the workshops, factories and plants—with the object of assuring production for their profit and work no more for a master, or anonymous masters, but for themselves, for the profit of the whole of society. The General Strike appears as the supreme effort, the last revolt, of the Proletariat to obtain their emancipation. The day when any power, no matter which, is incapable of resisting the complete and unanimous holding up of production leads inevitably to the revolutionary cataclysm, the prelude of the transformation of society. Such is. the aim and objects and methods of the C.G.T. as set forth in the rules and explained by the members.