Among the latter the revolutionary syndicalists have met with success in recent years. The ideas of revolutionary syndicalism have gained adherents among the employees of the Post Office, Telegraph and Telephone, and among the teachers of the public schools. The recent Congresses of the teachers have declared themselves ready to collaborate with the workingmen for the realization of their ideal society. The following motion adopted by the recent Congress of Nantes, at which 500 delegates were present, is very characteristic: "The professional associations of teachers (men and women), employees of the State, of the Departments and of the Communes," reads the motion, "assembled in the _Bourses du Travail_, declare their sympathy for the working-class, declare that the best form of professional action is the syndical form; express their will to work together with the workingmen's organizations for the realization of the Social Republic."[232] [232] _L'Humanité_, August 8, 1911. Also among the industrial and commercial middle classes there are some who look with favor on syndicalism. The French middle classes have for the last quarter of a century tried to organize themselves for resistance against the "financial feudalism" from which they suffer. Several organizations have been formed among the small merchants and masters, and in 1908 the "Association for the Defense of the Middle Classes" was constituted. The president of this Association, M. Colrat, wrote: "The ideas of the bourgeois syndicalism on the future are the same as those of the workingmen's syndicalism.... Far from contradicting one another, the syndicalism of the middle classes and the syndicalism of the working-classes reinforce each other in many respects, and notwithstanding many vexations, they lead to a state of relative equilibrium by a certain equality of opposing forces."[233] In the struggle against the big capitalists the leaders of the middle classes appear to be ready to form an alliance with the working-class. There can be little doubt, however, that the middle classes in general are opposed to the revolutionary ideals of the syndicalists. To succeed, the revolutionary syndicalists must bring about a change in the attitude of these classes, for the history of France has shown that the fear of "Communism" may throw the middle classes into the arms of a Caesar. [233] M. Colrat, _Vers l'équilibre social_, quoted by Mr. J. L. Puecht, "Le Mouvement des Classes Moyennes," in _La Grande Revue_, Dec., 1910.