Part 11 (2/2)

Such are the ”direct” methods of struggle against employers. But the revolutionary syndicalists have another enemy, the State, and the struggle against the latter is another aspect of ”direct action.”

The State appears to the syndicalists as the political organization of the capitalist cla.s.s. Whether monarchist, const.i.tutional, or republican, it is one in character, an organization whose function it is to uphold and to protect the privileges of the property-owners against the demands of the working-cla.s.s. The workingmen are, therefore, necessarily forced to hurl themselves against the State in their efforts toward emanc.i.p.ation, and they cannot succeed until they have broken the power of the State.

The struggle against the State, like the struggle against the employers, must be carried on directly by the workingmen themselves. This excludes the partic.i.p.ation of the syndicats in politics and in electoral campaigning. The parliamentary system is a system of representation opposed in principle to ”direct action,” and serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, for the management of which it is particularly suited. The workingmen can derive no benefit from it. The parliamentary system breeds petty, self-seeking politicians, corrupts the better elements that enter into it and is a source of intrigues and of ”wire-pulling.”

The so-called representatives of the workingman do not and cannot avoid the contagious influence of parliament. Their policy degenerates into bargaining, compromising and collaboration with the bourgeois political parties and weakens the cla.s.s-struggle.

The syndicats, therefore, if not hostile, must remain at least indifferent to parliamentary methods and independent of political parties. They must, however, untiringly pursue their direct struggle against the State. The direct method of forcing the State to yield to the demands of the workingmen consists in exerting external pressure on the public authorities. Agitation in the press, public meetings, manifestations, demonstrations and the like, are the only effective means of making the government reckon with the will of the working-cla.s.s.

By direct pressure on the government the workingmen may obtain reforms of immediate value to themselves. Only such reforms, gained and upheld by force, are real. All other reforms are but a dead letter and a means of deceiving the workingmen.

The democratic State talks much about social reforms, labor legislation and the like. In fact, however, all labor laws that are of real importance have been pa.s.sed only under the pressure of the workingmen.

Those which owe their existence to democratic legislators alone are devised to weaken the revolutionary strength of the working-cla.s.s. Among such laws are those on conciliation and arbitration. All democratic governments are anxious to have Boards of Conciliation and of Arbitration, in order to check strikes which are the main force of the working-cla.s.s. Workingmen must be opposed to these reforms, which are intended to further the harmony and collaboration of cla.s.ses, because the ideology of cla.s.s-harmony is one of the most dangerous snares which are set for the workingmen in a democratic State.[153] This ideology blinds the workingmen to the real facts of inequality and of cla.s.s-distinctions which are the very foundations of existing society.

It allures them into hopes which cannot be fulfilled and leads them astray from the only path of emanc.i.p.ation which is the struggle of cla.s.ses.

[153] The fundamental principle of democracy is that all citizens are equal before the law and that there are no cla.s.ses in the state.

Another idea which is used by the democratic State for the same purpose is the idea of patriotism. ”Our country”, ”our nation”, are mottoes inculcated into the mind of the workingman from his very childhood. But these words have no meaning for the workingman. The workingman's country is where he finds work. In search of work he leaves his native land and wanders from place to place. He has no fatherland (_patrie_) in any real meaning of the term. Ties of tradition, of a common intellectual and moral heritage do not exist for him. In his experience as workingman he finds that there is but one real tie, the tie of economic interest which binds him to all the workingmen of the world, and separates him at the same time from all the capitalists of the world. The international solidarity of the workingmen and their anti-patriotism are necessary consequences of the cla.s.s struggle.

The democratic State, like any other State, does not rely upon ideological methods alone in keeping down the workingmen. It has recourse to brute force as well. The judiciary, the administrative machinery and especially the army are used as means of defeating the movements of the working-cla.s.s. The army is particularly effective as a means of breaking strikes, of crus.h.i.+ng the spirit of independence in the workingmen, and as a means of keeping up the spirit of militarism. An anti-militaristic propaganda is, therefore, one of the most important forms of struggle against the State, as well as against capitalism.

Anti-militarism consists in carrying on in the army a propaganda of syndicalist ideas. The soldiers are reminded that they are workingmen in uniforms, who will one day return to their homes and shops, and who should not, therefore, forget the solidarity which binds them to their fellow workingmen in blouses. The soldiers are called upon not to use their arms in strikes, and in case of a declaration of war to refuse to take up arms. The syndicalists threaten in case of war to declare a general strike. They are ardent apostles of international peace which is indispensable, in their opinion, to the success of their movement.

By ”direct action” against employers and the State the workingmen may wrest from the ruling cla.s.ses reforms which may improve their condition more or less. Such reforms can not pacify the working-cla.s.s because they do not alter the fundamental conditions of the wage system, but they are conducive to the fortification of the working-cla.s.s and to its preparation for the final struggle. Every successful strike, every effective boycott, every manifestation of the workingmen's will and power is a blow directed against the existing order; every gain in wages, every shortening of hours of work, every improvement in the general conditions of employment is one more position of importance occupied on the march to the decisive battle, the general strike, which will be the final act of emanc.i.p.ation.

The general strike--the supreme act of the cla.s.s-war--will abolish the cla.s.ses and will establish new forms of society. The general strike must not be regarded as a _deus ex machina_ which will suddenly appear to solve all difficulties, but as the logical outcome of the syndicalist movement, as the act that is being gradually prepared by the events of every day. However remote it may appear, it is not a Utopia and its possibility cannot be refuted on the ground that general strikes have failed in the past and may continue to fail in the future. The failures of to-day are building the success of to-morrow, and in time the hour of the successful general strike will come.

What are the forms of the social organization which will take the place of those now in existence? The Congress of Lyons (1901) had expressed the wish to have this question on the program of the next Congress. In order that the answer to this question should reflect the ideas prevalent among the workingmen, the Confederal Committee submitted the question to the syndicats for study. A questionnaire was sent out containing the following questions:

(1) How would your syndicat act in order to transform itself from a group for combat into a group for production?

(2) How would you act in order to take possession of the machinery pertaining to your industry?

(3) How do you conceive the functions of the organized shops and factories in the future?

(4) If your syndicat is a group within the system of highways, of transportation of products or of pa.s.sengers, of distribution, etc., how do you conceive its functioning?

(5) What will be your relations to your federation of trade or of industry after your reorganization?

(6) On what principle would the distribution of products take place and how would the productive groups procure the raw material for themselves?

(7) What part would the _Bourses du Travail_ play in the transformed society and what would be their task with reference to the statistics and to the distribution of products?

At the Congress of Montpellier, in 1902, a number of reports were presented answering the above questions. The reports were in the name of the syndicats and came from different parts of France. Only a limited number of them were printed as appendices to the general report of the Congress. Among them, it may be interesting to note, was the report of the syndicat of agricultural laborers. The rest were summed up in the official organ of the Confederation, _La Voix du Peuple_.

The reports differed in details. Some emphasized one point more than another and _vice versa_. But the general character of the reports was identical and showed a consensus of opinion on the main outlines of that ”economic federalism” which is the ideal of the syndicalists.

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