Revolutionary Syndicalism from  Syndicalism in France by Louis Levine 1912  - Part 1.  Class-Struggle and the Industrial Union,

 The fundamental idea of revolutionary syndicalism is the idea of class-struggle. Society is divided into two classes, the class of employers who possess the instruments of production and the class of workingmen who own nothing but their labor-power and who live by selling it.

Between these two classes an incessant struggle is going on. This struggle is a fact, not a theory in need of proof. It is a fact manifested every day in the relations between employers and wage-earners, a fact inherent in the economic organization of existing society.

The class-struggle is not a fact to be deplored; on the contrary, it should be hailed as the creative force in society, as the force which is working for the emancipation of the working class.  It is the class-struggle which is consolidating the workingmen into a compact unity opposed to the exploitation and domination of employers. It is the class-struggle which is evolving new ideas of right ("droit") in opposition to existing law. It is the class-struggle which is developing the self-consciousness, the will-power and the moral character of the workingmen and is creating forms of organization proper to them. In a word, it is the class-struggle which is forging the material and moral means of emancipation for the workingmen and putting these weapons into their hands.

 The task of the syndicalists is to organize the more or less vague class-feeling of the workingmen and to raise it to the clear consciousness of class-interests and of class-ideals. This aim can be attained only by organizing the workingmen into syndicats. The syndicat is an association of workingmen of the same or similar trades, and is held together by bonds of common interest. In this is its strength. Of all human groupings it is the most fundamental and the most permanent, because men in society are interested above everything else in the satisfaction of their economic needs.

 The strength, permanence, and class-character of economic groups are made conspicuous by comparison with forms of grouping based on other principles. Political parties, groups of idealists, or communities professing a common creed, are associations which cannot but be weak and transient in view of their hetrogeneous composition and of the accidental character of their bond of union. Political bodies, for instance, are made up of men of various interests grouped only by community of ideas, This is true of the Socialist party which consists of manufacturers, financiers, doctors, and lawyers, as well as workingmen. Even the Socialist party cannot, therefore, make prominent the class-division of society, and tends to merge all classes into one conglomeration which is unstable and incapable of persistent collective action. Only in groupings of real and fundamental interests such as the syndicats, are men of the same conditions brought together for purposes inextricably bound with life.

The syndicat groups men of one and the same trade in their capacity of workingmen only, regardless of any other qualifications. The workingmen entering a syndicat may be Catholics or Protestants, Republicans, Socialists, or Monarchists, they may be of any color, race or nationality; in their capacity of working men they are all equally welcome and legitimate members of the syndicat. A workingman enrolling in a syndicat is not entering a party, not subscribing to a platform, nor accepting a creed. He is simply entering into a relation which is forced upon him by his very position in society, and is grouping himself with his fellowmen in such a way as to derive more strength for himself in the struggle for existence, contributing at the same time to the strength of his fellowmen.

 These conditions make the syndicat peculiarly fit to serve the interests of the workingmen. The syndicat is a sphere of influence which by the volume of its suggestion and by the constancy and intensity of its action shapes the feelings and ideas of the workingmen after a certain pattern. In the syndicat the workingmen forget things which divide them and are intent upon that which unites them. In the syndicat the workingmen meet to consider common interests, to discuss their identical situation, to plan together for defense and aggression, and in all ways are made to feel their group solidarity and their antagonism to the class of employers.

In view of this the syndicat should prefer industrial unionism to craft unionism. The separation of workingmen into trades is apt to develop in them a corporate spirit which is not in harmony with the class-idea. The industrial union, on the contrary, widens the mental horizon of the workingman and his range of solidarity with his fellow workers and thus serves better to strengthen his class-consciousness.

[to be continued]