In September, 1906, the Congress of the Confederation met at Amiens. The report of the secretary showed continued progress of the Confederation since 1904. The Section of Federations of industries now counted 61 federal organizations with 2,399 syndicats and 203,273 members. The dues collected by this section for the two years amounted to 17,650 francs; and its total budget to 20,586 francs. The section of the Federation of Bourses consisted now of 135 Bourses with 1,609 syndicats; it collected in dues 11,821 francs, and had a total budget of 15,566 francs.
The report of the Confederal Committee again called forth the attacks of “reformist” syndicalists, but was approved by 781 votes against 115 (21 blank and 10 contested). But the main question which absorbed the largest part of the work of the Congress was the relation of the General Confederation of Labor to the Socialist Party.
This question had again assumed a new character. The International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam (1904) had exhorted and advised the French Socialists to accomplish as soon as possible the unification of their separate parties into one national Socialist Party. In April, 1905, a “Congress of Unification” was held at Paris, at which the Parti Socialiste de France and the Parti Socialiste Français formed the Parti Socialiste Unifié. A common program was accepted and a new form of organization elaborated. At its first Congress in Chalons in October, 1905, the Unified Party counted 35,000 paying members distributed in 2,000 groups, 67 federations and 77 departments. In the elections of 1906 the Unified Party obtained an increase of votes and elected 54 members to Parliament.
It now seemed to many that there was no reason for the General Confederation of Labor to keep aloof from the Socialist Party. The reason heretofore given was that the divisions in the Socialist Party disorganized the syndicats, but since the Socialist Party was now unified, the reason lost all significance, and it seemed possible to establish some form of union between the two organizations. The question was taken up soon after the unification of the Socialist Party by the “Federation of Textile Workers” who had it inserted in the program of the coming Congress of Amiens. The question was discussed for some time before the Congress in the socialist and syndicalist press, and the decision that would be taken could have been foreseen from the discussion.
M. Renard, the Secretary of the “Federation of Textile Workers,” defended the proposition that permanent relations should be established between the General Confederation and the Unified Socialist Party. His argument was that in the struggle of the working-class for emancipation, various methods must be used, and that various forms of organization were accordingly necessary. The syndicat, in his opinion, could not suffice for all purposes; it was an instrument in economic struggles against employers, but by the side of this economic action, political action must be carried on to obtain protective labor legislation. For this purpose he considered it necessary to maintain relations with the Socialist Party, which had “always proposed and voted laws having for their object the amelioration of the conditions of the working-class as well as their definitive emancipation.”[202] Besides, argued M. Renard, “if a revolutionary situation should be created to-day,” the syndicats now in existence, with their present organization could not “regulate production and organize exchange,” and “would be compelled to make use of the machinery of the government.” The co-operation of the Confederation with the Socialist Party, therefore, was useful and necessary from the point of view both of the present and of the future.
M. Renard repudiated the accusation that he meant to introduce politics into the syndicats or to fuse the latter in the Socialist Party. On the contrary, he accused the Confederal Committee of carrying on political agitation under the cover of neutrality. Against this “special politics” his proposition was directed. “When anti-militarism is carried on,” said M. Renard, “when anti-patriotism is indulged in, when [electoral] abstention is preached, it is politics.”[203] This anarchistic policy has prevailed since the “libertarians have invaded the Confederation and have transformed the latter into a war-engine against the Socialist Party. The Federation of Textile Workers wants to put an end to the present state of affairs.”[204]
The proposition of the Textile workers was combated by revolutionary and “reformist” syndicalists alike. M. Keufer, who had bitterly attacked the revolutionary syndicalists at Bourges (1904), now fought the political syndicalists. He agreed with M. Renard that political action was necessary though he did not place “too great hopes in legislative action and in the intervention of the State;” still he thought that the latter was inevitable, and alluded to the fact that the revolutionary syndicalists themselves were constantly soliciting the intervention of the public authorities. But to secure a successful parallel economic and political action, M. Keufer believed that it was better for the Confederation to remain entirely independent of the Socialist Party, and he proposed a resolution repudiating both “anarchist and anti-parliamentarian agitation” and permanent relations with any political party.[205]
The revolutionary syndicalists in their turn criticised the part assigned to the syndicat both by the political syndicalists and by the “reformists.” They emphasized the “integral” and revolutionary rôle of the syndicat which makes it unnecessary and dangerous to conclude any alliance with any political party. They denied that the Confederal Committee was carrying on an anarchist propaganda. Said M. Griffuelhes:
Keufer insists very much on the presence of libertarians in the Confederal Committee; they are not so numerous as the legend has it; this is only a stratagem to arouse the fear of an anarchist peril which does not exist. On the contrary, the vitality of the Confederation is the result of a co-operation of various political elements. When, after the entrance of M. Millerand into the government, the latter began its policy of “domesticating” the workingmen, a coalition of Anarchists, Guesdists, Blanquists, Allemanists and other elements took place in order to isolate the government from the syndicats. This coalition has maintained itself and has been the very life of the Confederation.[206]