Syndicalism in France

by Lewis L. Lorwin

This change in views was brought about by a concurrence of many circumstances. The moderate character of the syndicats between 1872-1879 had been due in large measure to the political conditions of France. The cause of the Republic was in danger and the workingmen were cautious not to increase its difficulties. But after the elections of 1876 and 1877 and upon the election of Grevy to the Presidency, the Republic was more or less securely established, and the workingmen thought that they should now be more outspoken in their economic demands. The Committee which had organized the Congress of Paris had formulated these sentiments in the following terms: “From the moment that the republican form of government was secured”, wrote the Committee, “it was indispensable for the working-class, who up to that time had gone hand in hand with the republican bourgeoisie, to affirm their own interests and to seek the means which would permit them to transform their economic condition.”[46] It was believed that the means to accomplish this task was co-operation. The belief in co-operation was so intense and general at that time that one of the delegates to the Congress of Paris, M. Finance,[47] himself an opponent of co-operation, predicted a large co-operative movement similar to the movements of 1848-50 and 1864-67. The prediction did not come true. Nothing important was accomplished in this field, and the hopes in co-operation receded before the impossibility of putting the idea into practice. The critics and opponents of co-operation did the rest to discredit the idea. But when the idea of co-operation lost its influence over the syndicats, the ground was cleared for socialism. The Congress of Lyons had declared that “the syndicats must not forget that the wage-system is but a transitory stage from serfdom to an unnamed state.”[48] When the hope that this unnamed state would be brought about by co-operation was gone, the “unnamed” state obtained a name, for the Socialists alone held out to the workingmen the promise of a new state which would take the place of the wage system.

On ground thus prepared the Socialists came to sow their seed. A group of collectivists, inspired by the ideas of the “International”, had existed in Paris since 1873.[49] But this group began to attract attention only in 1877 when it found a leader in Jules Guesde. Jules Guesde is a remarkable figure in the history of French Socialism and has played a great part in shaping the movement. He had edited a paper, Les Droits de l'Homme, in Montpelier in 1870-1 and had expressed his sympathy for the Commune. This cost him a sentence of five years in prison. He preferred exile, went to Switzerland, there came into contact with the “International” and was influenced by Marxian ideas.

On his return to France, Jules Guesde became the spokesman and propagandist of Marxian or “scientific socialism”. Fanatical, vigorous, domineering, he soon made himself the leader of the French collectivists. Towards the end of 1877, he founded a weekly, L'Égalité, the first number of which outlined the program which the paper intended to defend. “We believe,” wrote L'Égalité, “with the collectivist school to which almost all serious minds of the working-class of both hemispheres now belong, that the natural and scientific evolution of mankind leads it irresistibly to the collective appropriation of the soil and of the instruments of labor.” In order to achieve this end, L'Égalité declared it necessary for the proletariat to constitute itself a distinct political party which should pursue the aim of conquering the political power of the State.[50]

The collectivists found a few adherents among the workingmen who actively propagated the new ideas. In 1878, several syndicats of Paris: those of the machinists, joiners, tailors, leather dressers and others, accepted the collectivist program.

The collectivist ideas were given wider publicity and influence by the persecution of the government. In 1878, an international congress of workingmen was to be held in Paris during the International Exhibition. The Congress of Lyons (1878) had appointed a special committee to organize this international congress. Arrangements were being made for the congress, when the government prohibited it.

The more moderate elements of the Committee gave way before the prohibition of the government, but Guesde and his followers accepted the challenge of the government and continued the preparations for the Congress. The government dispersed the Congress at its very first session and instituted legal proceedings against Guesde and other delegates.

The trial made a sensation and widely circulated the ideas which Guesde defended before the tribunal. From the prison where they were incarcerated the collectivists launched an appeal “to the proletarians, peasant proprietors and small masters” which contained an exposition of collectivist principles and proposed the formation of a distinct political party. The appeal gained many adherents from various parts of France.[51]

The idea of having workingmen's representatives in Parliament had already come up at the Congress of Paris (1876). This Congress, as indicated above, had on its program the question of the “Representation of the Proletariat in Parliament.” The reports on this question read at the Congress were extremely interesting. The “moderate co-operators” and “Barberetists”, as they were nicknamed by the revolutionary collectivists, insisted in these reports upon the separation which existed between bourgeois and workingmen, upon the inability of the former to understand the interests and the aspirations of the latter, and upon the consequent necessity of having workingmen's representatives in Parliament. These reports revealed the deep-seated sentiments of the workingmen which made it possible for the ideas of class and class struggle to spread among them.

The Congress of Lyons (1878) had advanced the question a step further. It had adopted a resolution that journals should be created which should support workingmen-candidates only.

With all this ground prepared, the triumph of the Socialists at the Congress of Marseilles (1879) was not so sudden as some have thought it to be. The influences which had brought about this change in sentiment were clearly outlined by the Committee on Organization, as may be seen from the following extract: