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Title: On Syndicalism
Author: Errico Malatesta
Date: 1925–1926
Language: en
Topics: class struggle, syndicalist
Source: Retrieved on March 4th, 2009 from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6170/malatesta_synd.html
Notes: From the Freedom Press publication “The anarchist revolution: Polemical articles 1924–1931: Errico Malatesta”. Some paragraph breaks have been added to improve readability

Errico Malatesta

On Syndicalism

Syndicalism and Anarchism

The relationship between the labour movement and the progressive parties

is an old and worn theme. But it is an ever topical one, and so it will

remain while there are, on one hand, a mass of people plagued by urgent

needs and driven by aspirations — at times passionate but always vague

and indeterminate — to a better life, and on the other individuals and

parties who have a specific view of the future and of the means to

attain it, but whose plans and hopes are doomed to remain utopias ever

out of reach unless they can win over the masses. And the subject is all

the more important now that, after the catastrophes of war and of the

post-war period, all are preparing, if only mentally, for a resumption

of the activity which must follow upon the fall of the tyrannies that

still rant and rage [across Europe] but are beginning to tremble. For

this reason I shall try to clarify what, in my view, should be the

anarchists’ attitude to labour organisations.

Today, I believe, there is no-one, or almost no-one amongst us who would

deny the usefulness of and the need for the labour movement as a mass

means of material and moral advancement, as a fertile ground for

propaganda and as an indispensable force for the social transformation

that is our goal. There is no longer anyone who does not understand what

the workers’ organisation means, to us anarchists more than to anyone,

believing as we do that the new social organisation must not and cannot

be imposed by a new government by force but must result from the free

cooperation of all. Moreover, the labour movement is now an important

and universal institution. To oppose it would be to become the

oppressors’ accomplices; to ignore it would be to put us out of reach of

people’s everyday lives and condemn us to perpetual powerlessness. Yet,

while everyone, or almost everyone, is in agreement on the usefulness

and the need for the anarchists to take an active part in the labour

movement and to be its supporters and promoters, we often disagree among

ourselves on the methods, conditions and limitations of such

involvement.

Many comrades would like the labour movement and anarchist movement to

be one and the same thing and, where they are able for instance, in

Spain and Argentina, and even to a certain extent in Italy, France,

Germany, etc. — try to confer on the workers’ organisations a clearly

anarchist programme. These comrades are known as ‘anarcho-syndicalists’,

or, if they get mixed up with others who really are not anarchists, call

themselves ‘revolutionary syndicalists’. There needs to be some

explanation of the meaning of ‘syndicalism’ If it is a question of what

one wants from the future, if, that is, by syndicalism is meant the form

of social organisation that should replace capitalism and state

organisation, then either it is the same thing as anarchy and is

therefore a word that serves only to confuse or it is something

different from anarchy and cannot therefore be accepted by anarchists.

In fact, among the ideas and the proposals on the future which some

syndicalists have put forward, there are some that are genuinely

anarchist. But there are others which, under other names and other

forms, reproduce the authoritarian structure which underlies the cause

of the ills about which we are now protesting, and which, therefore,

have nothing to do with anarchy. But it is not syndicalism as a social

system which I mean to deal with, because it is not this which can

determine the current actions of the anarchists with regard to the

labour movement.

I am dealing here with the labour movement under a capitalist and state

regime and the name syndicalism includes all the workers’ organisations,

all the various unions set up to resist the oppression of the bosses and

to lessen or altogether wipe out the exploitation of human labour by the

owners of the raw materials and means of production. Now I say that

these organisations cannot be anarchist and that it does no good to

claim that they are, because if they were they would be failing in their

purpose and would not serve the ends that those anarchists who are

involved in them propose. A Union is set up to defend the day to day

interests of the workers and to improve their conditions as much as

possible before they can be in any position to make the revolution and

by it change today’s wage-earners into free workers, freely associating

for the benefit of all

For a union to serve its own ends and at the same time act as a means of

education and ground for propaganda aimed at radical social change, it

needs to gather together all workers — or at least those workers who

look to an improvement of their conditions — and to be able to put up

some resistance to the bosses. Can it possibly wait for all the workers

to become anarchists before inviting them to organise themselves and

before admitting them into the organisation, thereby reversing the

natural order of propaganda and psychological development and forming

the resistance organisation when there is no longer any need, since the

masses would already be capable of making the revolution? In such a case

the union would be a duplicate of the anarchist grouping and would be

powerless either to obtain improvements or to make revolution. Or would

it content itself with committing the anarchist programme to paper and

with formal, unthought-out support, and bringing together people who,

sheeplike, follow the organisers, only then to scatter and pass over to

the enemy on the first occasion they are called upon to show themselves

to be serious anarchists?

Syndicalism (by which I mean the practical variety and not the

theoretical sort, which everyone tailors to their own shape) is by

nature reformist. All that can be expected of it is that the reforms it

fights for and achieves are of a kind and obtained in such a way that

they serve revolutionary education and propaganda and leave the way open

for the making of ever greater demands. Any fusion or confusion between

the anarchist and revolutionary movement and the syndicalist movement

ends either by rendering the union helpless as regards its specific aims

or with toning down, falsifying and extinguishing the anarchist spirit.

A union can spring up with a socialist, revolutionary or anarchist

programme and it is, indeed, with programmes of this sort that the

various workers’ programmes originate. But it is while they are weak and

impotent that they are faithful to the programme — while, that is, they

remain propaganda groups set up and run by a few zealous and committed

men, rather than organisations ready for effective action. Later, as

they manage to attract the masses and acquire the strength to claim and

impose improvements, the original programme becomes an empty formula, to

which no-one pays any more attention. Tactics adapt to the needs of the

moment and the enthusiasts of the early days either themselves adapt or

cede their place to ‘practical’ men concerned with today, and with no

thought for tomorrow.

There are, of course, comrades who, though in the first ranks of the

union movement, remain sincerely and enthusiastically anarchist, as

there are workers’ groupings inspired by anarchist ideas. But it would

be too easy a work of criticism to seek out the thousands of cases in

which, in everyday practice, these men and these groupings contradict

anarchist ideas. Hard necessity? I agree. Pure anarchism cannot be a

practical solution while people are forced to deal with bosses and with

authority. The mass of the people cannot be left to their own devices

when they refuse to do so and ask for, demand, leaders. But why confuse

anarchism with what anarchism is not and take upon ourselves, as

anarchists, responsibility for the various transactions and agreements

that need to be made on the very grounds that the masses are not

anarchist, even where they belong to an organisation that has written an

anarchist programme into its constitution? In my opinion the anarchists

should not want the unions to be anarchist. The anarchists must work

among themselves for anarchist ends, as individuals, groups and

federations of groups. In the same way as there are, or should be, study

and discussion groups, groups for written or spoken propaganda in

public, cooperative groups, groups working within factories and

workshops, fields, barracks, schools, etc., so they should form groups

within the various organisations that wage class war. Naturally the

ideal would be for everyone to be anarchist and for all organisations to

work anarchically. But it is clear that if that were the case, there

would be no need to organise for the struggle against the bosses,

because the bosses would no longer exist.

In present circumstances, given the degree of development of the mass of

the people amongst which they work, the anarchist groups should not

demand that these organisations be anarchist, but try to draw them as

close as possible to anarchist tactics. If the survival of the

organisation and the needs and wishes of the organised make it really

necessary to compromise and enter into muddied negotiations with

authority and the employers, so be it. But let it be the responsibility

of others, not the anarchists, whose mission is to point to the

inadequacy and fragility of all improvements that are made within a

capitalist society and to drive the struggle on toward ever more radical

solutions. The anarchists within the unions should strive to ensure that

they remain open to all workers of whatever opinion or party on the sole

condition that there is solidarity in the struggle against the bosses.

They should oppose the corporatist spirit and any attempt to monopolise

labour or organisation. They should prevent the Unions from becoming the

tools of the politicians for electoral or other authoritarian ends; they

should preach and practice direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and

free initiative. They should strive to help members learn how to

participate directly in the life of the organisation and to do without

leaders and permanent officials. They must, in short, remain anarchists,

remain always in close touch with anarchists and remember that the

workers’ organisation is not the end but just one of the means, however

important, of preparing the way for the achievement of anarchism.

April-May 1925

The Labour Movement and Anarchism

Dear comrades[1]

In your journal I came across the following sentence: ‘If we must choose

between Malatesta, who calls for class unity, and Rocker, who stands for

a labour movement with anarchist aims, we choose our German comrade.’

This is not the first time that our Spanish language press has

attributed to me ideas and intentions I do not have, and although those

who wish to know what I really think can find it clearly set out in what

I myself have written, I have decided to ask you to publish the

following explanation of my position.

Firstly, if things were really as you present them, I too would opt for

Rocker against your ‘Malatesta’, whose ideas on the labour movement bear

little resemblance to my own. Let’s get one thing clear: a labour

movement with anarchist objectives is not the same thing as an anarchist

labour movement. Naturally everyone desires the former. It is obvious

that in their activities anarchists look to the final triumph of anarchy

— the more so when such activities are carried out within the labour

movement, which is of such great importance in the struggle for human

progress and emancipation. But the latter, a labour movement which is

not only involved in propaganda and the gradual winning over of terrain

to anarchism, but which is already avowedly anarchist, seems to me to be

impossible and would in every way lack the purpose which we wish to give

to the movement.

What matters to me is not ‘class unity’ but the triumph of anarchy,

which concerns everybody; and in the labour movement I see only a means

of raising the morale of the workers, accustom them to free initiative

and solidarity in a struggle for the good of everyone and render them

capable of imagining, desiring and putting into practice an anarchist

life. Thus, the difference there may be between us concerns not the ends

but the tactics we believe most appropriate for reaching our common

goals.

Some believe anarchists must assemble the anarchist workers, or at the

least those with anarchist sympathies, in separate associations. But I,

on the contrary, would like all wage-earners, whatever their social,

political or religious opinions — or non-opinions — bound only in

solidarity and in struggle against the bosses, to belong to the same

organisations, and I would like the anarchists to remain

indistinguishable from the rest even while seeking to inspire them with

their ideas and example. It could be that specific circumstances

involving personalities, environment or occasion would advise, or

dictate the breaking up of the mass of organised workers into various

different tendencies, according to their social and political views. But

it seems to me in general that there should be a striving towards unity,

which brings workers together in comradeship and accustoms them to

solidarity, gives them greater strength for today’s struggles or

prepares them better for the final struggle and the harmony we shall

need in the aftermath of victory.

Clearly, the unity we have to fight for must not mean suppression of

free initiative, forced uniformity or imposed discipline, which would

put a brake on or altogether extinguish the movement of liberation. But

it is only our support for a unified movement that can safeguard freedom

in unity. Other wise unity comes about through force and to the

detriment of freedom. The labour movement is not the artificial creation

of ideologists designed to support and put into effect a given social

and political programme, whether anarchist or not, and which can

therefore, in the attitudes it strikes and the actions it takes, follow

the line laid down by that programme. The labour movement springs from

the desire and urgent need of the workers to improve their conditions of

life or at least to prevent them getting worse. It must, therefore, live

and develop within the environment as it is now, and necessarily tends

to limit its claims to what seems possible at the time.

It can happen — indeed, it often happens — that the founders of workers’

associations are men of ideas about radical social change and who profit

from the needs felt by the mass of the people to arouse a desire for

change that would suit their own goals. They gather round them comrades

of like mind: activists determined to fight for the interests of others

even at the expense of their own, and form workers’ associations that

are in reality political groups, revolutionary groups, for which

questions of wages, hours, internal workplace regulations, are a side

issue and serve rather as a pretext for attracting the majority to their

own ideas and plans. But before long, as the number of members grows,

short-term interests gain the upper hand, revolutionary aspirations

become an obstacle and a danger, ‘pragmatic’ men, conservatives,

reformists, eager and willing to enter into any agreement and

accommodation arising from the circumstances of the moment, clash with

the idealists and hardliners, and the workers’ organisation becomes what

it perforce must be in a capitalist society — a means not for refusing

to recognise and overthrowing the bosses, but simply for hedging round

and limiting the bosses’ power.

This is what always has happened and could not happen otherwise since

the masses, before taking on board the idea and acquiring the strength

to transform the whole of society from the bottom up, feel the need for

modest improvements, and for an organisation that will defend their

immediate interests while they prepare for the ideal life of the future.

So what should the anarchists do when the workers’ organisation, faced

with the inflow of a majority driven to it by their economic needs

alone, ceases to be a revolutionary force and becomes involved in a

balancing act between capital and labour and possibly even a factor in

preserving the status quo?

There are comrades who say — and have done so when this question is

raised — that the anarchists should withdraw and form minority

groupings. But this, to me, means condemning ourselves to going back to

the beginning. The new grouping, if it is not to remain a mere affinity

group with no influence in the workers’ struggle, will describe the same

parabola as the organisation it left behind. In the meantime the seeds

of bitterness will be sown among the workers and its best efforts will

be squandered in competition with the majority organisation. Then, in a

spirit of solidarity, in order not to fall into the trap of playing the

bosses’ game and in order to pursue the interests of their own members,

it will come to terms with the majority and bow to its leadership.

A labour organisation that were to style itself anarchist, that was and

remained genuinely anarchist and was made up exclusively of

dyed-in-the-wool anarchists could be a form — in some circumstances an

extremely useful one — of anarchist grouping; but it would not be the

labour movement and it would lack the purpose of such a movement, which

is to attract the mass of the workers into the struggle, and, especially

for us, to create a vast field for propaganda and to make new

anarchists. For these reasons I believe that anarchists must remain —

and where possible, naturally, with dignity and independence — within

those organisations as they are, to work within them and seek to push

them for ward to the best of their ability, ready to avail themselves,

in critical moments of history, of the influence they may have gained,

and to transform them swiftly from modest weapons of defence to powerful

tools of attack. Meanwhile, of course, the movement itself, the movement

of ideas, must not be neglected, for this provides the essential base

for which all the rest provides the means and tools. Yours for anarchy

December 1925

Errico Malatesta

Further Thoughts on Anarchism and the Labour Movement

Obviously I am unable to make myself understood to the Spanish speaking

comrades, at least as regards my ideas on the labour movement and on the

role of anarchists within it. I tried to explain these ideas in an

article that was published in El Productor on 8^(th) January (an article

whose heading, ‘The Labour Movement and Anarchism’ was wrongly

translated as ‘Syndicalism and Anarchism’). But from the response that I

saw in those issues of El Productor that reached me I see I haven’t

managed to make myself understood. I will therefore return to the

subject in the hope of greater success this time.

The question is this: I agree with the Spanish and South American

comrades on the anarchist goals that must guide and inform all our

activity. But I disagree with some as to whether the anarchist

programme, or rather, label, should be imposed on workers’ unions, and

whether, should such a programme fail to meet with the approval of the

majority, the anarchists should remain within the wider organisation,

continuing from within to make propaganda and opposing the

authoritarian, monopolist and collaborationist tendencies that are a

feature of all workers’ organisations, or to separate from them and set

up minority organisations.

I maintain that as the mass of workers are not anarchist a labour

organisation that calls itself by that name must either be made up

exclusively of anarchists — and therefore be no more than a simple and

useless duplicate of the anarchist groups — or remain open to workers of

all opinions. In which case the anarchist label is pure gloss, useful

only for helping to commit anarchists to the thousand and one

transactions which a union is obliged to carry out in the present day

reality of life if it wishes to protect the immediate interests of its

members. I have come across an article by D. Abad de Santillan [2] which

opposes this view... Santillan believes that I confuse syndicalism with

the labour movement, while the fact is that I have always opposed

syndicalism and have been a warm supporter of the labour movement.

I am against syndicalism, both as a doctrine and a practice, because it

strikes me as a hybrid creature that puts its faith, not necessarily in

reformism as Santillan sees it, but in classist exclusiveness and

authoritarianism. I favour the labour movement because I believe it to

be the most effective way of raising the morale of the workers and q

because, too, it is a grand and universal enterprise that can be ignored

only by those who have lost their grip on real life. At the same time I

am well aware that, setting out as it does to protect the short-term

interests of the workers, it tends naturally to reformism and cannot,

therefore, be confused with the anarchist movement itself.

Santillan insists on arguing that my ideal is ‘a pure labour movement,

independent of any social tendency, and which holds its own goals within

itself’ When have I ever said such a thing? Short of going back — which

I could easily do — to what Santillan calls the prehistoric time of my

earlier activities, I recall that as far back as 1907, at the Anarchist

Congress of Amsterdam, I found myself crossing swords with the ‘Charter

of Amiens’ syndicalists and expressing my total distrust of the

miraculous virtues of a ‘syndicalism that sufficed unto itself’

Santillan says that a pure labour movement has never existed, does not

exist and cannot exist without the influence of external ideologies and

challenges me to give a single example to the contrary. But what I’m

saying is the same thing! From the time of the First International and

before, the parties — and I use the term in the general sense of people

who share the same ideas and aims — have invariably sought to use i the

labour movement for their own ends. It is natural and right that this is

so, and I should like the anarchists, as I think Santillan would too,

not to neglect the power of the labour movement as a means of action.

The whole point at issue is whether it suits our aims, in terms of

action and propaganda, for the labour organisations to be open to all

workers, irrespective of philosophical or social creed, or whether they

should be split into different political and social tendencies. This is

a matter not of principle but of tactics, and involves different

solutions according to time and place. But in general to me it seems

better that the anarchists remain, when they can, within the largest

possible groupings.

I wrote: ‘A labour organisation that styles itself anarchist, that was

and is genuinely anarchist and is made up exclusively of

dyed-in-the-wool anarchists, could be a form — in some circumstances an

extremely useful one — of anarchist grouping; but it would not be the

labour movement and it would lack the purpose of such a movement.’ This

statement, which seems simple and obvious to me, dumbfounds Santillan.

He throws himself at it in transcendental terms, concluding that ‘if

anarchism is the idea of liberty it can never work against the ends of

the labour movement as all other factions do.’

Let’s keep our feet firmly on the ground. What is the aim of the labour

movement? For the vast majority, who are not anarchist, and who, save at

exceptional times of exalted heroism, think more of the present moment

than of the future, the aim of the labour movement is the protection and

improvement of the conditions of the workers now and is not effective if

its ranks are not swelled with the greatest possible number of wage

earners, united in solidarity against their bosses. For us, and in

general all people of ideas, the main reason for our interest in the

labour movement is the opportunities it affords for propaganda and

preparation for the future — and even this aim is lost if we gather

together solely with like-minded people.

Santillan says that if the Italian anarchists had managed to destroy the

General Confederation of Labour there would perhaps be no fascism today.

This is possible. But how to destroy the General Confederation if the

overwhelming majority of the workers are not anarchist and look to

wherever there is least danger and the greatest chance of obtaining some

small benefit in the short term? I do not wish to venture into that kind

of hindsight that consists in saying what would have happened if this or

that had been done, because once in this realm anyone can say what they

like without fear of being proved wrong. But I will allow myself one

question. Since the General Confederation could not be destroyed and

replaced with another equally powerful organisation, would it not have

been better to have avoided schism and remain within the organisation to

warn members against the somnolence of its leaders? We can learn

something from the constant efforts made by those leaders to frustrate

any proposal for unification and keep the dissidents at bay.

A final proof of the mistaken way in which certain Spanish comrades

interpret my ideas on the labour movement: In the periodical from San

Feliu de Guixol, Accion Obrera is an article by Vittorio Aurelio in

which he states:

‘I believe that my mission is to act within the unions, seeking to open

from within the labour organisations an ever upward path towards the

full realisation of our ideals. And whether we achieve that depends on

our work, our morale and our behaviour. But we must act through

persuasion, not imposition. For this reason I disagree that the National

Confederation of Labour (CNT) in Spain should directly call itself

anarchist, when, unfortunately, the immense majority of its members do

not know what this means, what libertarian ideology is about. I wonder,

if the defenders of this argument know that the members of the workers’

organisation do not think or act anarchically, why is there this anxiety

to impose a name, when we know full well that names alone mean nothing?’

This is precisely my point. And I wonder why, in saying this, Vittorio

Aurelio finds it necessary to declare that he does not agree with

Malatesta! Either my style of writing is getting too obscure or my

writings are being regularly distorted by the Spanish translators.

March 1926

[1] Open letter addressed to the editors of El Productor, an anarchist

journal published in Barcelona — Editor.

[2] Diego Abad de Santillan (1897–1983), Argentinean by birth. Active in

the Spanish Civil War. Journalist and editor.