Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
Major syndicalist organizations included the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France, the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD), and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA). Although they did not regard themselves as syndicalists, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) (nicknamed Wobblies) in the United States, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), and the Canadian One Big Union (OBU) are considered by most historians to belong to this current.
The Spanish International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT), which was formed in 1922, is an international syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. At its peak, it represented millions of workers and competed directly for the hearts and minds of the working class with social democratic unions and parties. A number of syndicalist organizations were and still are to this day linked in the IWA–AIT; some of its member organizations left for the International Confederation of Labour (ICL–CIT), which was formed in 2018.
Heyday[edit]
Before World War I[edit]
Syndicalists were involved in a number of strikes, labor disputes, and other struggles. In the United States, the IWW was involved in at least 150 strikes including the Goldfield, Nevada, labor troubles of 1906–1907 by miners' strikes, the Pressed Steel Car strike of 1909, the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, the Brotherhood of Timber Workers' strikes in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1912–1913, and the 1913 Paterson silk strike. The most prominent was the struggle in Lawrence. Wobblie leaders brought together 23,000 mostly immigrant workers, many of whom did not speak English. They arranged for workers' children to be sent to live with sympathetic families outside of Lawrence for the duration of the strike so their parents could focus on the struggle. Unlike most IWW-led strikes, the struggle was successful.[80] In Mexico, syndicalism first emerged in 1906 during the violent Cananea strike by miners and the even more violent Río Blanco strike by textile workers. In 1912, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, anarchists formed the syndicalist union House of the World Worker (Casa del Obrero Mundial). It led a series of successful strikes in 1913 in Mexico City and central Mexico. After the Constitutionalist Army occupied the capital in 1914, syndicalists allied with the government it established to defeat rural forces such as the Zapatistas and therefore received government support. Once those forces had been suppressed, this alliance broke apart and the Casa campaigned for workers' control of factories and the nationalization of foreign capital. It contributed to a rise in labor unrest that began in mid-1915. It led general strikes in May and in July–August 1916 in greater Mexico City. The latter was quelled by the army, marking the defeat of the Casa, which was also suppressed.[81]
In Portugal, the 5 October 1910 revolution that led to the deposition of the king was followed by a strike wave throughout the country. After the police occupied the offices of an agricultural union, syndicalists called for a general strike. During the strike, Lisbon was controlled by workers and there were armed uprisings in several other cities. In 1912, the strike wave ebbed off.[82] Italian syndicalists successfully organized agricultural workers in the Po Valley by uniting different parts of agricultural working class. They were most successful in areas where the reformist union Federterra had been thwarted by employers. Syndicalists led large strikes by farm workers in Parma and Ferrara in 1907–1908; these strikes failed as a result of employers' strikebreaking tactics and infighting among workers. In 1911–1913, syndicalists played an important role in a large strike wave in Italy's industrial centers. The syndicalist union confederation USI was formed in 1912 by veterans of both strike movements.[83]
British Wobblies were involved in two major strikes in Scotland, one at Argyll Motor Works and the second at a Singer Corporation's sewing machine factory in Clydebank. In 1906, several industrial unionists began to spread their ideas and organize workers at Singer's. The organized the 1911 strike at Singer after a woman was fired for not working hard enough. The strike was cleverly defeated by management and most activists lost their jobs.[84] The ISEL leader Tom Mann was also at the center of several labor disputes during the Great Labour Unrest, including the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike where he chaired the strike committee.[85] In Ireland, Larkin and the ITGWU led 20,000 during the 1913 Dublin lockout. After the ITGWU attempted to unionize the Dublin United Tramway Company and tram workers went on strike, the city's employers threatened to fire any workers who did not sign a pledge to not support the ITGWU, thereby turning the dispute into a city-wide conflict in late September. Workers' resistance crumbled in January 1914.[86]
Decline[edit]
From the early 1920s, the traditional syndicalist movements in most countries began to wane; state repression played a role, although movements that were not suppressed also declined. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, syndicalist organizations saw themselves as having three options: they could stay true to their revolutionary principles and be marginalized, they could give up those principles in order to adapt to new conditions, or they could disband or merge into non-syndicalist organizations.[159][note 11] The Spanish Revolution of 1936 resulted in the widespread implementation of anarcho-syndicalist and more broadly socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Levante, with the main union organization of the Republican faction being the CNT. Much of Spain's economy was put under workers' control before the Nationalist faction won the civil war and suppressed them. By the end of the 1930s, meaningful legal syndicalist organizations existed only in Bolivia, Chile, Sweden and Uruguay.[161] Syndicalists were involved in the anti-fascist movements of resistance during World War II in several countries, including Germany,[162][note 12] France,[170][note 13] and Poland.[174][note 14]
Syndicalism's decline was the result of a number of factors. In Russia, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, syndicalist movements were suppressed by authoritarian governments. The IWW in the United States and the Mexican House of the World Worker were weakened considerably by state repression. Syndicalist movements that were not suppressed also declined. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, this was primarily the result of the integration of the working class into capitalist relations. Proletarian families became units of individualized consumption as standards of living increased. This was partly the result of state intervention, particularly the emergence of the welfare state.[176] Avenues for social reform opened up and the franchise was widened, giving parliamentary reformism legitimacy.[177] Altena agrees that the state's growing influence in society was decisive for syndicalism's diminished influence. In addition to the welfare state, he refers to the increased significance of national policies, which eroded local autonomy. This made centralized unions able to negotiate national agreements more important and national and parliamentary politics more enticing for workers. They therefore turned to social democracy in larger numbers. Additionally, Altena says that syndicalism lost out to sports and entertainment in the cultural sphere.[178]
Vadim Dam'e adds to this that the development of capitalist production and changes in the division of labor diminished syndicalism's recruitment base.[179] According to authors like Stearns, Edward Shorter, Charles Tilly, and Bob Holton, who deem syndicalism a transitional form of workers' resistance between older craft-based artisanship and modern factory-based industry, syndicalism's decline was a product of that transition having been completed and workers being assimilated to capitalist factory discipline.[180] Darlington counters that syndicalism attracted a variety of workers, not just artisans and skilled workers; he concedes that such changes played a role in Spain, France, and some other countries.[181]
Several authors argue that syndicalism's demise was the result of workers' inherent pragmatism or conservatism, causing them to only be interested in immediate material gains rather than long-term goals like overthrowing capitalism. Robert Hoxie, Selig Perlman, and Patrick Renshaw invoke this argument to explain the IWW's decline, while Stearns, Dermot Keogh, and G. D. H. Cole do so with respect to French, Irish, and British syndicalism, respectively.[182] Darlington disputes the assumption that workers are incapable of developing a revolutionary consciousness. He says that seeking material gains is not incompatible with developing class consciousness, which entails the awareness that workers' material interests conflict with capitalism, particularly in times of crisis.[183]
According to many Marxists, syndicalism was a reaction to reformism in the labor movement and could not survive without it. The collapse of reformism after the war therefore automatically weakened syndicalism. According to Eric Hobsbawm, the biggest reason for syndicalism's decline was the rise of communism. Several communist parties drew their cadres from the syndicalists' ranks. To radical workers, the programmatic distinctions between syndicalism and communism were not all that relevant. The key is that, after the war, communism represented militancy or revolutionary attitude as such.[184] Darlington also sees the effects of the Russian Revolution as an important reason for the decline of syndicalism. The emergence of communism highlighted syndicalism's inherent weaknesses: the contradiction of building organizations that sought to be both revolutionary cadre organizations and mass labour unions, the emphasis on economic struggle to the detriment of political action and the commitment to localism limiting its ability to provide an effective centralized organization and leadership. Bolshevism's overcoming of these limitations and its success in Russia drew syndicalist leaders and members. It also exacerbated splits within the syndicalist camp.[185]