Anarchosyndicalism

Anarchosyndicalism began to develop in the late 1880s when many anarchists entered the french trade unions or syndicates which were just beginning to reemerge after the period of suppression that followed the paris commune. Later anarchist militants moved into key positions in the confederation generale du travail, founded in 1895 and worked out the theories of anarchosyndicalism. They shifted the basis of anarchism to the syndicates which they saw as organizations that united the producers in common struggle as well as in common work. The common struggle should take the form of “direct action” primarily in industry, since there the workers could strike most sharply at their closest enemies the capitalists the highest form of direct action, the general strike, could end by paralyzing not merely capitalism but also the state.

When the state was paralyzed the syndicates which had been the organs of revolt could be transformed into the basic units of the free society the workers would take over the ctories where they had been employees and would federate by industries.Anarchosyndicalism created a mystique of the working masses that ran counter to individualist trends and the stress on the producers as distinct from the consumers disturbed the anarchist communists who were haunted by the vision of massive trade unions ossifying into monolithic institutions. In drance, italy, and spain, however it was the syndicalist variant that brought anarchism its first and only mass following. The men who elaborated the philosophy of anarchosyndicalism included militants such as fernand pelloutier georges yvetot, and emile pouget who among them created the vision of a movement arising from the genius of the working people. There were also intellectuals outside the movement who drew theoretical conclusions from anarchosyndicalist practice the most important was sorel, the author of Reflexions sur la violence (Reflections on violence 1908),who saw the general strike as a saving “social myth” that would main in society in a state of struggle and therefore of health.