Editorial Note: The article below is a document that relates to discussions in the Anarchist Communist Group concerning Industrial Strategy in the present period and complements the article Unions or Councils? ---- A brief history --- Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that seeks to unionise workers and advance their demands through strikes and other forms of direct action, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production through the general strike and running it via direct democracy. It has precursors in the 1830s with Proudhon's mutualism gaining ground among France's artisans and in Britain's Grand National Consolidated trade union which was inspired by Robert Owen's Cooperative ideas. It developed an increasingly revolutionary outlook during the First International through the activities of those sections inspired by Bakunin's anarchist collectivism.
Syndicalist ideas and organisational forms emerged in 1880s and 1890s amongst the practice of anarchists in the labour movement of North America, in the early Spanish labour movement and particularly in France, where the trade union movement was hampered by division between various socialist parties/tendencies. In France it developed out of the labour exchanges (local institutions involved with employment and workers' culture) and the nascent General Confederation of Labour, which incorporated both local reformist and revolutionary unions of mostly artisans where the structure was syndicalist and the revolutionaries became dominant. A separate movement developed in the USA with the establishment of the industrial unionist Industrial Workers of the World. This was as much influenced by Marxism as anarchism and was more centralised than the CGT. The IWW followed a dual unionist strategy which separated them from the reactionary American Federation of Labour union that barred women, Black and unskilled workers.
In Europe and in particular in the Latin countries this dual unionist strategy emerged with the creation of specifically anarcho-syndicalist unions separate from their reformist counterparts. Post WW1, the CGT split three ways: a reformist union, a communist led union and an anarcho-syndicalist union. In Britain and Ireland the movement was split between those syndicalists advocating the dual unionist strategy of the Industrial unionists and those favouring the 'boring from within' approach, led by Tom Mann and the Industrial Syndicalist Education League. In the UK the movement it was spearheaded mostly by Marxists and others disillusioned with the opportunism of Socialist parliamentary politics.
Globally, the movement counted in the millions. It declined due to the influence of the Bolshevik revolution which pulled many syndicalists towards the new Communist parties and due to massive repression at the hands of the red scare in the USA and, ultimately, Fascism and Stalinism in Europe and Latin America. Despite its decline it remains the most militant form of industrial class struggle and a form that is echoed spontaneously wherever the tide of class struggle rises, for example in the form of workers councils and workplace committees.
Below I have outlined the main strengths and weaknesses of the various forms of syndicalism from an anarchist communist, Platformist perspective.
Revolutionary syndicalism
As seen in the pre WW1 CGT in France, its strength lay in its ability for a militant minority within the syndicates to lead by example. Many members were reformist but the syndicalist structure of these small local unions helped prevent a bureaucracy developing to hold back the revolutionaries. It was also non-party political which helped bring unity to a movement divided by many different socialist and anarchist groups.
Its weakness was in the small craft nature of the syndicates which divided workshops into separate unions. Many of the anarchists involved felt the creation of separate anarchist organisation to be unnecessary as they believed that the state would crumble with the general strike. Unfortunately the absence of an anarchist organisation to guide the union created a political vacuum into which the ideology of reformism poured in. Its test came when WW1 broke out and the CGT, lacking a coherent alternative to war, led many syndicalists to capitulate to national chauvinism.
Another weakness lies in the analysis of Syndicalism. It holds the belief that what holds the workers back is the trade union bureaucracy and bureaucratic forms of organisation. Whilst this is true, they are also held back by their belief in reformism. It takes a political organisation of anarchists to challenge these ideas and to ensure the state is smashed as even if it crumbling, it will start to rebuild itself immediately.
The mass syndicalist organisation is also at risk of reformist degeneration because of the very nature of trade unionism. Strikes can be lost as well as won and even when won compromise is necessary when the workers don't yet have the strength to overthrow capitalism. Militant workers have to temporarily accommodate themselves to the given situation and this can lead to ideological accommodation too (this has occurred with the Swedish SAC syndicalist union though as long as it retains a syndicalist structure this can be changed). The independent anarchist communist organisation can provide a counterweight to this tendency.
Anarcho-syndicalism
The 'fusion' of anarchism and syndicalism in the form of anarcho-syndicalism is exemplified in the Spanish CNT in the early 20th century. Its strength was that here the anarchists were organised and maintained an anarchist line within the union which was strengthened further with the founding of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). The union would seize control of industry and abolish the state. The CNT/FAI had its own militia in embryo and extended well beyond the workplace helping to establish the cultural wing of the movement and creating alliances with other parts of the oppressed.
However by merging into the union, anarchists lost their independence and were subject to the same pull towards compromise as all syndicalists. Following a dual unionist strategy was also problematic. The CNT had the allegiance of half the working class but was cut off organisationally from the rest of the working class organised in the socialist UGT. It caused them to become paralysed. The choice to either taking power in the form of a dictatorship of the CNT or collaborating with the anti-fascist Republic had to be made and they chose the latter as dictatorship was anathema to them.
In the current era, the merging of anarchist and syndicalist activity into one organisation creates problems of purity. The International Workers Association has split, notably over whether to participate in work councils (these councils are elected by all staff whether they belong to a union or not and are organised by management and funded by government-thankfully not a problem yet in the UK). Without a separate anarchist organisation the anarcho-syndicalist union has to stay pure to maintain its anarchist ideology. This has effectively shut them out of these negotiating councils which has made it difficult for them to recruit.
The Friends of Durruti group who advocated an independent anarchist organisation and urged CNT members to take power came too late and was expelled from the CNT in 1937 following the May events in Barcelona where a militant minority tried to resist the dismantling of the revolution by the CNT backed Republican government. Anarcho-syndicalists continue to argue that the CNT joined the Republican government due to the exceptional circumstances of having to fight a common foe in fascism. However a military coup is a likely scenario in any revolution and therefore shouldn't be seen as exceptional.
Industrial unionism
Best seen in the IWW. Its strengths lie in its industrial union organising. No division along craft or skill lines. It is focused on a goal of taking control of the means of production via worker's direct democratic management. It is non-political though it is anchored by a revolutionary preamble. This allows syndicalists of different political persuasions to more easily work together. This isn't bullet proof though as the 1924 IWW split between centralisers and decentralisers shows.
Its negatives are that its historic strategy of dual unionism splits off syndicalist militants from their reformist fellow workers leaving them more prey to their reformist trade union leaders. It also lacks the ability to effectively carry out political activity like an anarchist organisation along platformist lines. Most of the experienced IWW members were incarcerated during the red scare in the USA from 1917 onwards and this helped break the organisation.
The current IWW recruits a lot of non-syndicalist workers who are unhappy with the trade unions because they are unresponsive or expensive. Many of the anarchists within it are from the synthesis and anarcho-syndicalist tradition. As it is currently it would suffer from the same issues as the early French CGT or the Spanish CNT if tested.
'Boring from within' syndicalism
In Britain we had a 'boring from within' syndicalism as seen during the great unrest 1910-14 and in the pamphlet The Miner's Next Step. They managed to capture many TUC branches but those elected to regional and national positions became integrated into the bureaucracy quicker than the unions could be transformed. Even lay officials at national, regional and even branch level come to act as bureaucrats. In Britain in 1926 many of the leaders that betrayed the general strike had earlier in their union careers been inspired by syndicalism.
The boring from within approach is much weaker than both revolutionary syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism. Capturing a trade union via a super majority at Conference is of course possible but this would have to occur very rapidly to succeed or else candidates at national, regional and even branch level would become corrupted along the way and compromise the 'boring from within' approach. Even facing a supermajority the bureaucracy will still have the power to attempt to thwart a syndicalist take over. So, whilst this approach isn't impossible it heavily relies on last minute mass spontaneity rather than slowly building and convincing fellow workers and has a high risk of failure.
De Leonism
A syndicalist form of parliamentary socialism was developed in the USA by Daniel De Leon and spread to Britain and Ireland with advocates such as James Connolly. The theory here was that the workers would simultaneously build up industrial control of industry whilst seeking to gain power for the Socialist Labour Party in parliament. In reality it put parliamentary action above direct action in industry and was highly sectarian, leading to its failure.
Revolutionary shop-stewardism
In Germany from 1916 to 1919 there was an organisation of revolutionary shop stewards within the bureaucratic trade unions, many of whom would form the centrist Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and who helped spearhead the creation of the workers' councils. (Centrists are reformists who talk revolution but wish to contain it within legal means).
They acted independently of the trade union and USPD leadership not seeking to transform these organisations from within but concentrating on winning over the workers' councils to a revolutionary perspective instead. In effect they created a dual organisation within the trade unions.
Initially, without an experienced political revolutionary organisation they were swayed by the centrist argument that socialisation of the means of production should wait until the economy was more stable whilst some eventually swung to the opposite extreme of putschism. Beyond a network of shop stewards they had no other organisation at this stage.
Some would go on to form the council communist Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (AAUD) union which acted as a politically council communist workers' union separate from and in strict opposition to the reformist trade union movement. As the revolution receded so did the membership of the AAUD which had by then split between advocates of a party and those rejected the party form (the AAUD - Unitary) and then again between those willing to fight for short term wage deals and those opposed to all compromises.
Communist syndicalism
The minority movement. This was the united front tactic used by the Communist International in the early 20's and later called for by Trotsky in his transitional programme during the 1930s. This combined centrist demands from below with a rank and file movement in the trade unions. Many sincere syndicalists were part of this and one of its stated objectives was workers' management of industry. However, if it had been successful the Communist Party's belief in state socialism and top-down organising would have sharply come into conflict with its stated syndicalist aims. It sought to both develop rank and file power below and to subject any Communist regional and national officials to rigorous party discipline from above.
The opportunist period from 1924 to 1928 within the Comintern where they cosied up to the non- revolutionary left bureaucrats within the trade unions was not syndicalist in nature. Nor were the bureaucratic red unions of the Comintern's left period in the late 20's and early 30's. The orthodox Trotskyists since have followed the boring from within method minus any meaningful rank and file movement.
The exception has been the Cliffites of the Socialist Workers Party who briefly had a rank and file movement in the 1970s. This was based on combining rank and file action with mild reformist (not centrist) demands. The theory being that even fighting for reforms would cause workers to collide with the state and radicalise them. It was a nod to Rosa Luxemburg's spontaneity theory of the mass strike. It begs the question however, "what if capitalism decides to allow reforms? What then?" It fails to move workers beyond a mind-set of reformism. Whilst this approach may attract syndicalists the politics of the SWP are top down (more so than the early Communist Party's) and their literature whilst talking often of party democracy and workers' councils is almost silent on workers' management of industry. For all Trotskyists the question of direct democracy in industry (and also the armed forces) is a preference rather than a necessity. Even if that preference is made (a big if) the iron discipline of a bureaucratic Trotskyist party would force delegates within a direct democracy to act like bureaucrats. The democratic centralist (and the case of the SWP, bureaucratic centralist) party acts as a bureaucracy ready made to graft on to the worker's industrial and community councils.
The rank and file movement was abandoned by the 1980s when the party adopted the "downturn" theory. Ever since it has acted as a front for Labour Left's within the Trade union bureaucracy against even orthodox Trotskyist candidates.
The dual card strategy
The overtly state socialist options (De Leonism, Communist Syndicalism, the Cliffite rank and file movement) should be discounted as they will not lead to workers' power. Boring from within syndicalism carries a high chance of bureaucratic degeneration and the Revolutionary Stewardism was too easily pulled this way and that by centrism and putschism before settling on a sectarian pure council communist union that withered once the revolutionary wave passed. I believe that non-political industrial unionism provides for greater unity than revolutionary syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism due to the reasons outlined above.
Its two major weaknesses (dual unionism cutting it off from reformist workers and a lack of strong anarchist influence) can be resolved by
1. It being embedded within but independent of the trade unions via dual carding. This will achieve maximum unity but also maximum ability to act separately when needed. Recruitment to the revolutionary industrial union should be based on militancy and revolutionary goals rather than as a cheaper more enthusiastic alternative to a trade union. The revolutionary union within the trade unions should be a band of the most militant and revolutionary workers. They should seek not to get themselves elected to positions of representative power (national executive, regional executive) but seek to transform their trade union branches along syndicalist lines whilst building (for example) the IWW within.
2. Dual Militancy so that its best militants are organised into an independent specific anarchist communist organisation that seeks to lead the battle of ideas within the working class rather than organisationally dominate the industrial union, organises outside of industry and keeps its focus on destroying the state and replacing it with a society based on direct democracy and generalised workers' self-management.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/stormy-petrel/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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