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Updated: June 12, 2025
It is not precisely because the Crowd is not willing to be knocked down, and has not shown itself to be over and over again, when it thought its being knocked down might possibly help in a just cause. But it has not been through coal strikes, Industrial Workers of the World, and syndicalist outbreaks for nothing.
The Syndicalist and his folly will be the avenger of lost opportunities. Not a Labour State do we want, nor a Servile State, but a powerful Leisure State of free men. Sec. 1 For many years now I have taken a part in the discussion of Socialism. During that time Socialism has become a more and more ambiguous term.
Although natural enough as a consequence of syndicalist antagonism to the State, these ideas are nevertheless fatal when applied to the actual conduct of a working-class movement. It means that the minority believes that it can drive the majority.
"The Parliamentary method was suited by its principle to the reform era. Direct action corresponds to the syndicalist era. Nothing is more simple. "As long as organized labor believes in the possibility of amending present society by a series of measures built up one upon the other, it makes use of the means that the present system offers it. It proceeds through intervening elected persons.
The thinker who has faced this difficulty most radically is Georges Sorel in the "Reflexions sur la Violence." His doctrine of the "social myth" has seemed to many commentators one of those silly paradoxes that only a revolutionary syndicalist and Frenchman could have put forward.
By profession a mining engineer, he led the forces of revolt in the historic industrial upheaval in the Rand in what Smuts denounced as a "Syndicalist Conspiracy." Riot, bloodshed, and confusion reigned for a considerable period at Johannesburg and large bodies of troops had to be called out to restore order.
With their "myths," their "reflections on violence," their appeals to physical vigor and to the glory of combat, as well as with their incessant attacks on the socialist movement, they have given very material aid to the anarchist element in the syndicalist movement.
But, when this idea is actually advocated as an ideal of working-class organization, when it is made to stand as a policy and practice of a trade union, it can only result in suspicion, disruption, and, eventually, in complete ruin. It appears that the militant syndicalist, like the anarchist, realizes that he cannot expect the aid of the people.
Before leaving the syndicalists, I would call attention to a change that is coming over the spirit of some of their leaders, as regards immediate plans of action. Another syndicalist of influence has been advocating the establishment of training-schools for the workers, in preparation for the day when they are to take over the industries. Vocational instruction this upon the great scale!
And, in his inmost soul, the little sufferer was not sorry to think that he had been the cause of suffering to the girl. Olivier had gone into retirement once more. It was not long before Christophe rejoined him. It was very certain that their place was not with the syndicalist movement: Olivier could not throw in his lot with such people. And Christophe would not.
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