Anarcho-Syndicalism

ALTHOUGH ANARCHISM and syndicalism constitute two distinct philosophies and bases of activity, [Page 23]they also enshrine particular points of commonality and similarity sufficient to meld them into a discrete political doctrine and movement known as anarchosyndicalism.

It was in France during the late 19th century and early 20th century (until World War I), and in Spain until the Spanish Civil War, that anarcho-syndicalism proved most popular or influential, although Italy, the United States (via the Industrial Workers of the World, IWW, formed in 1905), and parts of Latin America have also proved receptive to anarcho-syndicalism at various junctures.

ASSAULT ON CAPITALISM

Syndicalism sought to organize the “exploited” proletariat on the basis of various industries or crafts, both in order to secure short-term material improvements for workers and peasants, and to prepare for a longerterm assault on capitalism and the state (which ultimately served and protected the interests of the bourgeoisie). Through direct action—most notably in the form of a general strike—some anarchists viewed syndicalism as a valuable channel through which to establish links with the rapidly expanding working class and educate them into the alleged virtues of anarchist principles and practice, and in so doing, warn them against relying on socialist parties and parliamentary activity to liberate them. The former, if they obtained political power, would invariably become the new rulers of the proletariat and peasantry.

Anarcho-syndicalists would eventually be able to point to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and its tragic aftermath as evidence of the danger of relying on vanguard socialist parties to lead and liberate the workers, while relying primarily on parliamentary activity would merely serve to enslave and integrate the organized working class into the extant capitalist system, with concessions to workers and trade unions only granted on terms, and in circumstances, judged appropriate by the bourgeoisie and “their” state. For anarcho-syndicalists, therefore, the genuine emancipation and liberation of the working class could only be achieved by the activities of the workers and peasants themselves; revolution had to be a bottom-up, not a top-down, activity.

Anarcho-syndicalists deemed the occupational or craft federations (syndicates) to provide the best model for the decentralized and ultra-democratic society (based on mass participation and direct democracy) for which they were ultimately striving: “Federal forms of organization corresponded to anarchist principles, and so the syndicates could be seen as the embryos of a new, stateless social order,” David Miller explained.

Closely linked to this, syndicalism tended to formally reject established political institutions and processes, partly because these seemed to entail organizational rigidity and the centralization of political power, and partly because established political parties and institutions seemed to weaken the apparent revolutionary potential of the proletariat through a twin process of subordination to, and integration into, the wider politico-economic system.

This eschewal of “bourgeois politics” was therefore highly attractive to some anarchists, for whom radical socialist parties, while espousing the (anarchist) goal of a classless and completely egalitarian society, often relied on the concept of a tightly organized, highly centralized, Leninist-vanguard party to lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism. To anarchists, this was likely to result in the replacement of one elite and its subordination of the workers by another, irrespective of the egalitarian or emancipatory rhetoric deployed.

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