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Title: Anarchism and Syndicalism Author: Errico Malatesta Date: 1907 Language: en Topics: syndicalism, class struggle, anarcho-syndicalism Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey. Notes: From Freedom (London) 21, no. 223 (November 1907). The article was published shortly after the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam, where the center stage was taken by the debate between Pierre Monatte and Malatesta on syndicalism and the general strike.
The question of the position to be taken in relation to the Labour
movement is certainly one of the greatest importance to Anarchists.
In spite of lengthy discussions and of varied experiences, a complete
accord has not yet been reached—perhaps because the question does not
admit of a complete and permanent solution, owing to the different
conditions and changing circumstances in which we carry on the struggle.
I believe, however, that our aim may suggest to us a criterion of
conduct applicable to the different contingencies.
We desire the moral and material elevation of all men; we wish to
achieve a revolution which will give to all liberty and well-being, and
we are convinced that this cannot be done from above by force of law and
decrees, but must be done by the conscious will and the direct action of
those who desire it.
We need, then, more than any the conscious and voluntary co-operation of
those who, suffering the most by the present social organisation, have
the greatest interest in the Revolution.
It does not suffice for us—though it is certainly useful and
necessary—to elaborate an ideal as perfect as possible, and to form
groups for propaganda and for revolutionary action. We must convert as
far as possible the mass of the workers, because without them we can
neither overthrow the existing society nor reconstitute a new one. And
since to rise from the submissive state in which the great majority of
the proletarians now vegetate, to a conception of Anarchism and a desire
for its realisation, is required an evolution which generally is not
passed through under the sole influence of the propaganda; since the
lessons derived from the facts of daily life are more efficacious than
all doctrinaire preaching, it is for us to take an active part in the
life of the masses, and to use all the means which circumstances permit
to gradually awaken the spirit of revolt, and to show by these facts the
path which leads to emancipation.
Amongst these means the Labour movement stands first, and we should be
wrong to neglect it. In this movement we find numbers of workers who
struggle for the amelioration of their conditions. They may be mistaken
as to the aim they have in view and as to the means of attaining it, and
in our view they generally are. But at least they no longer resign
themselves to oppression nor regard it as just—they hope and they
struggle. We can more easily arouse in them that feeling of solidarity
towards their exploited fellow-workers and of hatred against
exploitation which must lead to a definitive struggle for the abolition
of all domination of man over man. We can induce them to claim more and
more, and by means more and more energetic; and so we can train
ourselves and others to the struggle, profiting by victories in order to
exalt the power of union and of direct action, and bring forward greater
claims, and profiting also by reverses in order to learn the necessity
for more powerful means and for more radical solutions.
Again—and this is not its least advantage—the Labour movement can
prepare those groups of technical workers who in the revolution will
take upon themselves the organisation of production and exchange for the
advantage of all, beyond and against all governmental power.
But with all these advantages the Labour movement has its drawbacks and
its dangers, of which we ought to take account when it is a question of
the position that we as Anarchists should take in it.
---
Constant experience in all countries shows that Labour movements, which
always commence as movements of protest and revolt, and are animated at
the beginning by a broad spirit of progress and human fraternity, tend
very soon to degenerate; and in proportion as they acquire strength,
they become egoistic, conservative, occupied exclusively with interests
immediate and restricted, and develop within themselves a bureaucracy
which, as in all such cases, has no other object than to strengthen and
aggrandise itself.
It is this condition of things that has induced many comrades to
withdraw from the Trade Union movement, and even to combat it as
something reactionary and injurious. But the result has been that our
influence diminished accordingly, and the field was left free to those
who wished to exploit the movement for personal or party interests that
had nothing in common with the cause of the workers’ emancipation. Very
soon there were only organisations with a narrow spirit and
fundamentally conservative, of which the English Trade Unions are a
type; or else Syndicates which, under the influence of politicians, most
often “Socialist,” were only electoral machines for the elevation into
power of particular individuals.
Happily, other comrades thought that the Labour movement always held in
itself a sound principle, and that rather than abandon it to the
politicians, it would be well to undertake the task of bringing them
once more to the work of achieving their original aims, and of gaining
from them all the advantages they offer to the Anarchist cause. And they
have succeeded in creating, chiefly in France, a new movement which,
under the name of “Revolutionary Syndicalism,” seeks to organise the
workers, independently of all bourgeois and political influence, to win
their emancipation by the direct action of the wage-slaves against the
masters.
That is a great step in advance; but we must not exaggerate its reach
and imagine, as some comrades seem to do, that we shall realise
Anarchism, as a matter of course, by the progressive development of
Syndicalism.
Every institution has a tendency to extend its functions, to perpetuate
itself, and to become an end in itself. It is not surprising then, if
those who have initiated the movement, and take the most prominent part
therein, fall into the habit of regarding Syndicalism as the equivalent
of Anarchism, or at least as the supreme means, that in itself replaces
all other means, for its realisation. But that makes it the more
necessary to avoid the danger and to define well our position.
Syndicalism, in spite of all the declarations of its most ardent
supporters, contains in itself, by the very nature of its function, all
the elements of degeneration which have corrupted Labour movements in
the past. In effect, being a movement which proposes to defend the
present interests of the workers, it must necessarily adapt itself to
existing conditions, and take into consideration interests which come to
the fore in society as it exists to-day.
Now, in so far as the interests of a section of the workers coincide
with the interests of the whole class, Syndicalism is in itself a good
school of solidarity; in so far as the interests of the workers of one
country are the same as those of the workers in other countries,
Syndicalism is a good means of furthering international brotherhood; in
so far as the interests of the moment are not in contradiction with the
interests of the future, Syndicalism is in itself a good preparation for
the Revolution. But unfortunately this is not always so.
Harmony of interests, solidarity amongst all men, is the ideal to which
we aspire, is the aim for which we struggle; but that is not the actual
condition, no more between men of the same class than between those of
different classes. The role to-day is the antagonism and the
interdependence of interests at the same time: the struggle of each
against all and of all against each. And there can be no other condition
in a society where, in consequence of the capitalist system of
production—that is to say, production founded on monopoly of the means
of production and organised internationally for the profit of individual
employers—there are, as a rule, more hands than work to be done, and
more mouths than bread to fill them.
It is impossible to isolate oneself, whether as an individual, as a
class, or as a nation, since the condition of each one depends more or
less directly on the general conditions of the whole of humanity; and it
is impossible to live in a true state of peace, because it is necessary
to defend oneself, often even to attack, or perish.
The interest of each one is to secure employment, and as a consequence
one finds himself in antagonism—i.e., in competition—with the unemployed
of one’s country and the immigrants from other countries. Each one
desires to keep or to secure the best place against workers in the same
trade; it is the interest of each one to sell dear and buy cheap, and
consequently as a producer he finds himself in conflict with all
consumers, and again as consumer finds himself in conflict with all
producers.
Union, agreement, the solidary struggle against the exploiters,—these
things can only obtain to-day in so far as the workers, animated by the
conception of a superior ideal, learn to sacrifice exclusive and
personal interests to the common interest of all, the interests of the
moment to the interests of the future; and this ideal of a society of
solidarity, of justice, of brotherhood, can only be realised by the
destruction, done in defiance of all legality, of existing institutions.
To offer to the workers this ideal; to put the broader interests of the
future before those narrower and immediate; to render the adaptation to
present conditions impossible; to work always for the propaganda and for
action that will lead to and will accomplish the Revolution—these are
the objects we as Anarchists should strive for both in and out of the
Unions.
Trade Unionism cannot do this, or can do but little of it; it has to
reckon with present interests, and these interests are not always, alas!
those of the Revolution. It must not too far exceed legal bounds, and it
must at given moments treat with the masters and the authorities. It
must concern itself with the interests of sections of the workers rather
than the interests of the public, the interests of the Unions rather
than the interests of the mass of the workers and the unemployed. If it
does not do this, it has no specific reason for existence; it would then
only include the Anarchists, or at most the Socialists, and would so
lose its principal utility, which is to educate and habituate to the
struggle the masses that lag behind.
Besides, since the Unions must remain open to all those who desire to
win from the masters better conditions of life, whatever their opinions
may be on the general constitution of society, they are naturally led to
moderate their aspirations, first so that they should not frighten away
those they wish to have with them, and next because, in proportion as
numbers increase, those with ideas who have initiated the movement
remain buried in a majority that is only occupied with the petty
interests of the moment.
Thus one can see developing in all Unions, that have reached a certain
position of influence, a tendency to assure, in accord with rather than
against the masters, a privileged situation for themselves, and so
create difficulties of entrance for new members, and for the admission
of apprentices in the factories; a tendency to amass large funds that
afterwards they are afraid of compromising; to seek the favour of public
powers; to be absorbed, above all, in co-operation and mutual benefit
schemes; and to become at last conservative elements in society.
After having stated this, it seems clear to me that the Syndicalist
movement cannot replace the Anarchist movement, and that it can serve as
a means of education and of revolutionary preparation only if it is
acted on by the Anarchistic impulse, action, and criticism.
Anarchists, then, ought to abstain from identifying themselves with the
Syndicalist movement, and to consider as an aim that which is but one of
the means of propaganda and of action that they can utilise. They should
remain in the Syndicates as elements giving an onward impulse, and
strive to make of them as much as possible instruments of combat in view
of the Social Revolution. They should work to develop in the Syndicates
all that which can augment its educative influence and its
combativeness,—the propaganda of ideas, the forcible strike, the spirit
of proselytism, the distrust and hatred of the authorities and of the
politicians, the practice of solidarity towards individuals and groups
in conflict with the masters. They should combat all that which tends to
render them egoistic, pacific, conservative,— professional pride and the
narrow spirit of the corporate body, heavy contributions and the
accumulation of invested capital, the service of benefits and of
assurance, confidence in the good offices of the State, good
relationships with masters, the appointment of bureaucratic officials,
paid and permanent.
On these conditions the participation of Anarchists in the Labour
movement will have good results, but only on these conditions.
These tactics will sometimes appear to be, and even may really be,
hurtful to the immediate interests of some groups; but that does not
matter when it is a question of the Anarchist cause,—that is to say, of
the general and permanent interests of humanity. We certainly wish,
while waiting for the Revolution, to wrest from Governments and from
employers as much liberty and wellbeing as possible; but we would not
compromise the future for some momentary advantages, which besides are
often illusory or gained at the expense of other workers.
Let us beware of ourselves. The error of having abandoned the Labour
movement has done an immense injury to Anarchism, but at least it leaves
unaltered the distinctive character.
The error of confounding the Anarchist movement with Trade Unionism
would be still more grave. That will happen to us which happened to the
Social Democrats as soon as they went into the Parliamentary struggle.
They gained in numerical force, but by becoming each day less
Socialistic. We also would become more numerous, but we should cease to
be Anarchist.