Or, to put it otherwise, the intelligent French worker
has awakened, as he believes, to the fact that Society
(Societas) and the State (Civitas) connote two separable
spheres of human activity, between which there is no
connection, necessary or desirable. Without the one, man,
being a gregarious animal, cannot subsist: while without
the other he would simply be in clover. The ``statesman''
whom office does not render positively nefarious
is at best an expensive superfluity.
Syndicalists have had many violent encounters
with the forces of government. In 1907 and 1908,
protesting against bloodshed which had occurred in
the suppression of strikes, the Committee of the C.
G. T. issued manifestoes speaking of the Government
as ``a Government of assassins'' and alluding
to the Prime Minister as ``Clemenceau the murderer.''
Similar events in the strike at Villeneuve St. Georges
in 1908 led to the arrest of all the leading members
of the Committee. In the railway strike of October,
1910, Monsieur Briand arrested the Strike Committee,
mobilized the railway men and sent soldiers
to replace strikers. As a result of these vigorous
measures the strike was completely defeated, and
after this the chief energy of the C. G. T. was directed
against militarism and nationalism.
The attitude of Anarchism to the Syndicalist
movement is sympathetic, with the reservation that
such methods as the General Strike are not to be
regarded as substitutes for the violent revolution
which most Anarchists consider necessary. Their
attitude in this matter was defined at the International
Anarchist Congress held in Amsterdam in
August, 1907. This Congress recommended ``comrades
of all countries to actively participate in autonomous
movements of the working class, and to
develop in Syndicalist organizations the ideas of
revolt, individual initiative and solidarity, which are
the essence of Anarchism.'' Comrades were to
``propagate and support only those forms and manifestations
of direct action which carry, in themselves,
a revolutionary character and lead to the
transformation of society.'' It was resolved that
``the Anarchists think that the destruction of the
capitalist and authoritary society can only be realized
by armed insurrection and violent expropriation,
and that the use of the more or less General Strike
and the Syndicalist movement must not make us
forget the more direct means of struggle against
the military force of government.''
Syndicalists might retort that when the movement
is strong enough to win by armed insurrection
it will be abundantly strong enough to win by the
General Strike. In Labor movements generally, success
through violence can hardly be expected except
in circumstances where success without violence is
attainable. This argument alone, even if there were
no other, would be a very powerful reason against
the methods advocated by the Anarchist Congress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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