Our concern is not with the reformist movement, occasionally spoken of as Trade Unionism, which constitutes the special province of M. Bernstein and the Neo-Marxians of his school,[1020] but rather with militant syndicalism, which as yet scarcely exists anywhere except in France and Italy, and which in France is represented by the Confédération générale du Travail.
What connection is there between Marxism and syndicalism? Of conscious, deliberate relationship there is scarcely any. The men who direct the Confédération have never read Marx, possibly, and would hardly concern themselves with the application of his doctrines. On the other hand, we have recently been told that the programme of the Confédération générale du Travail (C.G.T.) is in strict conformity with the Marxian doctrine; that since the reforming passion has so seized hold of the Neo-Marxians as to drive them to undermine the older doctrine altogether, it is necessary to turn to the new school to find the pure doctrine. They make the further claim of having aroused new enthusiasm for the Marxian doctrines.
(a) In the first place they have re-emphasised the essentially proletarian character of socialism. Not only is there to be no dealing with capitalist or entrepreneur, but no quarter is to be given to the intellectuals or the politicians. The professional labour syndicate is to exclude everyone who is not a workman, and it has no interest at heart other than that of the working class.[1021] Contempt for intellectualism is a feature of Marxism, and so is the emphasis laid upon the beauty and worth of labour, not of every kind of labour, but merely of that labour which moulds or transforms matter—that is, of purely manual labour.
No institution seems better fitted to develop class feeling—that is, the sense of community of interests binding all the proletarians together against the owners—than the syndicat. Organisation is necessary if social consciousness is to develop. This is as true in the economic as it is in the biological sphere, and this is why the syndicat is just what was needed to transform the old socialistic conception into real socialism. Marx could not possibly have foreseen the vast potentialities of the syndicat. If he had only known it how his heart would have rejoiced! The Neo-Marxians can never speak of syndicalism without going into raptures. No other new source of energy seems left in this tottering middle-class system. But syndicalism has within it the promise of a new society, of a new philosophy, even of a new code of morality which we may call producers’ ethics, which will have its roots in professional honour, in the joy that comes from the accomplishment of some piece of work, and in their faith in progress.[1022]
(b) New stress has been laid upon the philosophy of class war, and a fresh appeal has been made for putting it into practice. The only real, sensible kind of revolution is that which must sooner or later take place between capitalists on the one hand and wage-earners on the other, and this kind of revolution can only be effected by appealing to class feeling and by resorting to every instrument of conflict, strikes, open violence, etc. All attempts at establishing an understanding with the bourgeois class, every appeal for State intervention or for concessions, must be abandoned. Explicit trust must be placed in the method of direct action.[1023]
Strife is to be the keynote of the future, and in the pending struggle every trace of bourgeois legalism will be ruthlessly swept aside. The fighting spirit must be kept up, not with a view to the intensification of class hatred, but simply in order to hand on the torch.
The struggle has hitherto been the one concern of the revolutionary syndicalists. Unlike the socialists, they have never paid any attention either to labour or to social organisation. All this has, fortunately, been done by the capitalist, and all that is required now is simply to remove him.[1024]
(c) Nor has the catastrophic thesis been forgotten. This time it has been revived, not in the form of a financial crisis, but in the guise of a general strike. What will all the bourgeois generalship, all the artillery of the middle class, avail in a struggle of that kind? What is to be done when the worker just folds his arms and instantly brings all social life to a standstill, thus proving that labour is really the creator of all wealth? And although one may be very sceptical as to the possibility of a general strike—the scepticism is one that is fully shared in by the syndicalists themselves—still this “myth,” as Sorel calls it, must give a very powerful stimulus to action, just as the Christians of the early centuries displayed wonderful activity in view of their expectation of the second coming of Christ.
The word “myth” has been a great success, not so much among working men, to whom it means nothing at all, but among the intellectuals. It is very amusing to think that this exclusively working-class socialism, which is not merely anti-capitalist, but also violently anti-intellectual, and which is to “treat the advances of the bourgeoisie with undisguised brutality,” is the work of a small group of “intellectuals” possessed of remarkable subtlety, and even claiming kinship with Bergsonian philosophy.[1025] A myth perhaps! But what difference is there between being under the dominion of a myth and following in the wake of a star such as guided the wise men of the East, or being led by a pillar of flame or a cloud such as went before the Israelites on their pilgrimage towards the Promised Land?[1026] Such faith and hope borrowed from the armoury of the triumphant Church of the first century, such a conception of progress which swells its followers with a generous, almost heroic passion, puts us out of touch with the historic materialism so dear to the heart of Marx and brings us into line with the earlier Utopian socialists whom he so genuinely despised. Sorel recognises this. “You rarely meet with a pure myth,” says he, “without some admixture of Utopianism.”