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Title: Anarchists and Unions
Author: Pëtr Kropotkin
Date: July 11, 2019
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-syndicalism, unions
Source: Retrieved on 24th April 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=1115
Notes: Introduction by Iain McKay. Originally published in Les Temps Nouveaux.

Pëtr Kropotkin

Anarchists and Unions

Precursors of Syndicalism III

After discussing the rise of syndicalist ideas in the First

International (Precursors of Syndicalism I) and then in the

Chicago-based International Working People’s Association (Precursors of

Syndicalism II), we now turn to debates within the European anarchist

movement before the rise of revolutionary syndicalism in France. In

other words, communist-anarchism in the form of its most famous thinker,

Peter Kropotkin. To do so shows that the standard narrative on anarchism

and syndicalism is wrong.

This narrative is simple and can be found in most Marxist diatribes

against anarchism. With the embrace and failure of “propaganda by the

deed” (acts of individual violence against members of the ruling class)

by the early 1890s, many anarchist turned towards working within the

labour movement. This narrative is reflected in George Woodcock’s

influential history of Anarchism:

“French anarchism […] climbed out of the depths of 1894, when its press

was destroyed, its leaders were standing trial, and its structure of

autonomous groups was almost completely dispersed, toward the highest

point of its influence […] The period from 1881 to 1894 had been a time

of isolation, when the anarchists wandered in a wilderness of marginal

social groups and sought the way to a millennium in desperate acts on

the one hand and idyllic visions on the other. The period from 1894 to

1914 saw a fruitful equilibrium between the visionary and the practical

[…] Anarcho-syndicalism […] showed anarchism seeking constructive

solutions.” (Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements

[Penguin Books, 1986], 260)

This resulted in the rise of syndicalism after 1895, a development often

portrayed as inconsistent, or fundamentally incompatible, with anarchism

(as individual acts are asserted to be the quintessential anarchist

tactic). This is often combined with a suggestion that come 1917 most

syndicalists turned to Leninism, thus implying that syndicalism itself

is quasi-Marxist or a step towards Marxism. Likewise, and as noted in

our second instalment, Marxists often seek to proclaim – against all

logic and evidence – the IWPA Marxist.

Yet even Woodcock had to admit that “Varlin and the French Bakuninists

had also recognised before the Paris Commune the role of the trade

unions in the social struggle, and the general strike had been supported

by the non-Marxist collectivists within the International” before

immediately contradicting himself by noting the syndicalist “emphasis on

the syndicate rather than the commune as the basic social unit, and on

industrial action as opposed to conspiratorial or insurrectional action,

were the two points on which the anarcho-syndicalists principally

differed from the anarchist communists and the collectivists.” (263) We

need not dwell too long on this, other than to note that the latter

anarchists argued that industrial action was not enough and so also

advocated insurrection – so it is not quite a matter of “emphasis.”

Even if we ignore Woodcock’s own undermining of this narrative, it is

easy to refute and we will do so by focusing on the thinker most

associated with anarchist-communism, Peter Kropotkin. A Russian

aristocrat, he rejected his position in light of the horrors of the

regime he benefited from. Initially becoming a socially aware official

seeking reforms, he embraced the revolutionary anarchism of the

Federalist-wing within the International Working Men’s Association

(IWMA) when visiting Western Europe in 1872. He then returned to Russia,

the following year joining the Populist (“to the people”) movement to

argue for libertarian ideas and tactics.

The group he joined – the Chaikovsky Circle – was discussing whether

their direction would be further socialist propaganda among the educated

youth or to make contact with the workers and peasants. Kropotkin

advocated the latter for propaganda must be made “unquestionably among

the peasantry and urban workers” for “the insurrection must proceed

among the peasantry and urban workers themselves” if it were to succeed.

Revolutionaries “must not stand outside the people but among them, must

serve not as a champion of some alien opinions worked out in isolation,

but only as a more distinct, more complete expression of the demands of

the people themselves.” Moreover, a strike “trains the participants for

a common management of affairs and for distribution of responsibilities,

distinguishes the people most talented and devoted to a common cause,

and finally, forces the others to get to know these people and

strengthens their influence.” (“Must We Occupy Ourselves with an

Examination of the Ideal of a Future System,” Selected Writings on

Anarchism and Revolution [Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press, 1970], 85–6, 113)

Arrested for his activities, he was imprisoned in a Tsarist jail and

after a daring escape from its hospital in 1876, he returned to Western

Europe and four decades of exile. During this time he went from being

one comrade amongst many to the most famous advocate of anarchism in the

world. He, along with the likes of Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta and

Élisée Reclus, played a key role in the rise of anarchist-communism.

This primarily focused on the best method of distributing goods after

the revolution, rejecting the earlier distribution according to product

created (i.e., according deeds) advocated by mutualists and

collectivists with free distribution (i.e., according to needs). Echoing

the conclusions drawn by Joseph Déjacques in the 1850s they proclaimed

“from each according to their abilities, to each according to needs.”

In terms of tactics, communist-anarchism initially saw no major change

and it advocated the “Bakuninist” tactics of labour struggle and

insurrection. This is reflected in Kropotkin’s first major theoretical

contribution “The Anarchist Idea from the Point of View of its Practical

Realisation” (Le Révolté, 1 November 1879) which saw him argue that “the

best method of shaking this edifice [of the State] would be to stir up

the economic struggle” while also taking “advantage of every favourable

opportunity to point out the incapacity, hypocrisy and class egoism of

present governments.” The aim would be “the transformation of the

property system by the expropriation pure and simple of the present

holders of the large landed estates, of the instruments of labour, and

of capital of every kind, and by the seizure of all such capital by the

cultivators, the workers’ organisations, and the agricultural and

municipal communes.”

However, the advocacy of “propaganda of the deed” – in the sense of

individual acts of terror – by some anarchists around the same time saw

many conflate communist-anarchism with this. Significantly, Kropotkin

never embraced the term (coining “the spirit of revolt” to contrast his

ideas with it) and continued to urge anarchist involvement in the labour

movement:

“We have to organise the workers’ forces ― not to make them into a

fourth party in Parliament, but in order to make them a formidable

MACHINE OF STRUGGLE AGAINST CAPITAL. We have to group workers of all

trades under this single purpose: ‘War on capitalist exploitation!’ And

we must prosecute that war relentlessly, day by day, by the strike, by

agitation, by every revolutionary means. […] once the workers of every

land have seen that organisation at work, taking the workers’ interests

into its hands, waging unrelenting war on capital […] once the workers

from every trade, from village and city alike, are united into a single

union […] crush[ing] the tyranny of Capital and State for good (“Enemies

of the People,” Le Révolté, 5 February 1881)

This meant rejecting calls by Marxists to take part in elections for

this would mean “abandon[ing] the terrain of the economic struggle, of

the worker against the capitalist, in order to become compliant tools in

the hands of the politicians.” Unlike parliamentarianism, this direct

struggle against Capital and State had a radicalising effect:

“however moderate the battle-cry may be – provided that it is in the

domain of the relations between capital and labour – as soon as it is

put into practice by revolutionary means, it will eventually deepen and

inevitably lead to demanding the overthrow of the regime of property.

Whereas a party which confines itself within parliamentary politics ends

up abandoning its programme, however advanced it was in the beginning:

it ends up merged with the parties of bourgeois opportunism.” (“The

League and the Trade Unions,” Le Révolté, 1 October 1881)

As an alternative, he pointed to the Spanish anarchists as remaining

“[f]aithful to the anarchist traditions of the International, clever,

active, energetic men are not about to set up a group to pursue their

petty ends: they remain within the working class, they struggle with it,

for it. They bring the contribution of their energy to the workers’

organisation and work to build up a force that will crush capital, come

the day of revolution: the revolutionary trades association.” (“The

Workers’ Movement in Spain,” Le Révolté, 11 November 1881). He explained

his ideas in a two part article which is worth quoting at length:

“it is against the holders of capital, be they blue, red or white, that

they wish to declare war. It is not a political party that they seek to

form either: it is a party of economic struggle. It is no longer

democratic reform that they demand: it is a complete economic

revolution, the social revolution” […] they must engage in the struggle

against capital. […] If we wish to prepare for the day of the battle

[and] our victory over capital, we must, from this day onward begin to

skirmish, to harass the enemy at every opportunity, to make them seethe

and rage, to exhaust them with the struggle, to demoralise them. […]

“The enemy on whom we declare war is capital, and it is against capital

that we will direct all our efforts, taking care not to become

distracted from our goal by the phony campaigns and arguments of the

political parties. The great struggle that we are preparing for is

essentially economic, and so it is on the economic terrain that we

should focus our activities.

“If we place ourselves on this terrain, we will see that the great mass

of workers will come and join our ranks, and that they will assemble

under the flag of the League of Workers. Thus we will become a powerful

force which will, on the day of the revolution, impose its will upon

exploiters of every sort. […] In order to be able to make revolution,

the mass of workers must organise themselves, and resistance and the

strike are excellent means by which workers can organise. Indeed, they

have a great advantage over the tactics that are being proposed at the

moment (workers’ representatives, constitution of a workers’ political

party, etc.) which do not actually derail the movement but serve to keep

it perpetually in thrall to its principal enemy, the capitalist. […]

What is required is to build resistance associations for each trade in

each town, to create resistance funds and fight against the exploiters,

to unify the workers’ organisations of each town and trade and to put

them in contact with those of other towns, to federate across France, to

federate across borders, internationally […] It is through the

organisation of resistance to the boss that the International managed to

gather together more than two million workers and to create a powerful

force before which both bourgeoisie and governments trembled.”

(“Workers’ Organisation,” Le Révolté, 10 and 24 December 1881)

In short, the early 1880s saw him write numerous articles on the subject

of the labour movement in an attempt to counter the ultra-revolutionary

posturing which had overtaken the French anarchist movement at the time.

This was cut short with his arrest and subsequent imprisonment after the

famous Lyon trial of 1883, although he later noted that his efforts were

without much success when he recounted asking a prosecution witness at

the Lyon trial whether he had succeeded in having “the International

reconstituted” and received the reply: “No. They did not find it

revolutionary enough.” (Memoirs of a Revolutionist [Montreal/New York:

Black Rose Books, 1989], 420).

Released in 1886, he felt France for Britain. There he helped found

Freedom in London and argued that workers “will not wait for orders from

above before taking possession of land and capital. They will take them

first, and then – already in possession of land and capital – they will

organise their work.” (“Act for Yourselves,” Freedom, January 1887). He

saw in the 1889 London Dock Strike an example to show anarchists the

importance of involvement in the labour movement (see “The London Dock

Strike of 1889,” Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 63 [Winter 2015]). He noted

how anarchists had “often spoken of the general strike” and the dock

strike showed its validity for the workers “are the masters. And the day

when those anarchists who exhaust themselves in empty discussions […]

will work amongst the workers to prepare the stopping of work in the

trades that supply all the others, they will have done more to prepare

the social, economic, Revolution, that all the writers, journalists, and

orators of the socialist party.” (“What a strike is,” La Révolte, 7

September 1889)

In Britain, he likewise urged that anarchists “spread the light in every

corner of the land, infusing the spirit of Revolution into every mine,

factory and workshop. By so doing, we shall soon have the workers of

England no longer asking for trifling increases of wages, but demanding

in sturdy tones a cessation of the system of robbery which obtains

today.” (“The Use of the Strike,” Freedom April 1890) He pointed to the

example of the IWPA: “Were not our Chicago Comrades right in despising

politics, and saying the struggle against robbery must be carried on in

the workshop and the street, by deeds not words?” (“The Chicago

Anniversary,” Freedom, December 1891) The unions were not only good

weapons in the struggle but also the means to replace capitalism:

“I should say that the chief point to be achieved now is to make the

Anarchist ideas permeate the great labour movement which is so rapidly

growing in Europe and America; and to do so by all those means, and only

by such means, which are in strict accordance with our own principles

[…]

“No one can underrate the importance of this labour movement for the

coming revolution. It will be those agglomerations of wealth producers

which will have to reorganise production on new social bases. They will

have to organise the life of the nation and the use which it will make

of the hitherto accumulated riches and means of production. They – the

labourers, grouped together – not the politicians.” (“Commemoration of

the Chicago Martyrs,” Freedom, December 1892)

The need was for anarchists “to bring our ideas into that movement, to

spread them, by all means, among those masses which hold in their hands

the future issue of the revolution” and to “propagate among the masses

the ideas which we consider as the bases of the coming development” for

“it is only in the great working masses – supported by their energies,

applied by them to real life – that our ideas will attain their full

development.”

So by 1892, the leading thinker of communist-anarchism had been

advocating anarchist involvement in the labour movement for twenty

years, since 1872 in fact. The spate of assassinations and bombings of

the early 1890s occurred after the turn to syndicalist tactics not

before as is usually claimed – return would be better, as Kropotkin

indicated in his justly famous article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

“Accordingly, since the foundation of the International Working Men’s

Association in 1864–1866, [anarchists] have endeavoured to promote their

ideas directly amongst the labour organisations and to induce those

unions to a direct struggle against capital, without placing their faith

in parliamentary legislation.” (“Anarchism,” Direct Struggle Against

Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology [AK Press, 2014], 165)

This is the theoretical context of the rise of syndicalism in France,

the product of many decades of anarchist participation within the labour

movement and which reflected the ideas advocated by its leading lights,

not least Kropotkin. As can be seen, all the essential aspects of

syndicalism – direct economic struggle, unions as a means to both fight

and replace capitalism, the general strike – was advocated by Kropotkin

and other anarchist-communists. They linked their ideas to both the

Federalist-wing of the IWMA and the IWPA, recognising – like Bakunin

before them – that they had not invented these ideas but rather

championed tactics developed by workers themselves.

Thus, for Kropotkin, “struggle, the war against the exploiter always

remains the only weapon of the exploited” and that “struggle, by the

strike, the war with the machines, the war against the landlord (which

takes a thousand different aspects according to the localities), and the

revolt against the State unites workers.” (“Co-operation and Socialism,”

Les Temps Nouveaux, 27 July 1895) The pressing need was the creation of

an “international union of labour organisations” for “Capital is its

enemy. Direct warfare against it – its weapons.” (“The Trade Union

Congress,” Freedom, October 1896). This would create the framework of

libertarian socialism as it would “build up a force capable of imposing

better working conditions on the bosses, but also ― indeed primarily –

to create among the working classes the union structures that might some

day replace the bosses and take into their own hands the production and

management of every industry.” (“Trade Unionism and Parliamentarianism,”

Les Temps Nouveaux, 13 October 1906). As he summarised in 1913:

“what means can the State provide to abolish this [capitalist] monopoly

that the working class could not find in its own strength and groups?

[…] Could its governmental machine, developed for the creation and

upholding of these [capitalist] privileges, now be used to abolish them?

Would not the new function require new organs? And these new organs

would they not have to be created by the workers themselves, in their

unions, their federations, completely outside the State?” (Modern

Science and Anarchy [AK Press, 2018], 164)

This anti-Statist alternative was raised in opposition to Marxism which

“talked of the conquest of power, but it knew only how to show us its

conquest by power, the conquest of socialism by the bourgeoisie.” (“The

Conquest of Socialists by Power,” Les Temps Nouveaux, 21 April 1900) A

new path was needed and so Kropotkin, following Proudhon, saw the need

to identify tendencies that had developed within capitalism which

pointed beyond it, those elements which would be the means of creating

and running a post-capitalist society. Thus the future was appearing in

the present, not least by the actions of workers in their struggles.

Hence Kropotkin from an article on the 1913 Dublin lockout and workers’

solidarity actions across Britain:

“It is only like that — by building while we destroy — will the workers

arrive at their liberation. It is necessary that it is seen that the

bourgeois is worse than harmful: that it is useless.” (“Solidarité

Ouvrière”, Les Temps Nouveaux, 11 October 1913)

The class struggle, the labour movement of both towns and countryside,

was the means by which a new world was created, in its struggle against

the old to resist exploitation and oppression. This was primarily seen

in terms of unions, but Kropotkin also saw the potential of the workers’

councils created during the 1905 Revolution which “very much reminds us

of the Central Committee which preceded the Paris Commune of 1871, and

it is certain that workers across the country should organise on this

model […] these councils represent the revolutionary strength of the

working class.” (“Direct Action and the General Strike in Russia,” Les

Temps Nouveaux, 2 December 1905)

In the aftermath of that Revolution, Kropotkin stressed to his Russian

comrades to learn its lessons and those of their comrades elsewhere,

arguing that anarchists had to work in the labour movement to ensure it

“wages a direct, unmediated battle of labour against capital” but also

that “anarchists look to the workers’ unions as cells of the future

social order and as a powerful means for the preparation of the social

revolution, which is not confined to a change of political regime but

also transforms the current forms of economic life, e.g. the

distribution of the manufactured riches and their means of production.”

In short, “the workers’ unions” are “natural organs for the direct

struggle with capital and for the organisation of the future order —

organs that are inherently necessary to achieve the workers’ own goals.”

The general strike “has proved to be a powerful weapon in the struggle”

and “a means of producing a revolution.” (“The Russian Revolution and

Anarchism,” Direct Struggle Against Capital, 466–7, 476–7)

Given that the final issue of Les Temps Nouveaux in 1914 proclaimed

itself – as it had for many years – “Ex-Journal ‘La Révolte’” in a

sub-title and Kropotkin in 1899 stated that the journal he founded in

1879 “still continues, at Paris, under the title of ‘Temps Nouveaux”.

(Memoirs of a Revolutionist, 390), a complete understanding of his ideas

can only be gained by consulting its various incarnations over three

decades along with his contributions to Freedom and other journals.

Kropotkin’s books do not include the articles written on tactics and

strategy which should be pursued by the movement which, while they do

appear in the more general and introductory works, are usually passing

comments rather than the detailed discussions which appear in

newspapers. Sadly, no equivalent of Words of a Rebel or The Conquest of

Bread appeared on the key question of how communist-anarchism would come

about (many, but not all, of these articles are included in Direct

Struggle Against Capital). Without this, the obvious conclusions would

be that he considered revolution just appearing out-of-the-blue, a

position he explicitly and repeated warned anarchists against while

arguing for anarchist participation in working class movements.

The notion, popularised by Murray Bookchin (when he still considered

himself an anarchist), that communist-anarchism focused on the community

and lamented syndicalism’s reduction of libertarian critique and

struggle to just the economic terrain is inadequate. For Kropotkin –

like Bakunin and many syndicalists – there was no conflict between

advocating community struggle and organisation as well as industrial

struggle and organisation. While he did object to certain aspects of

French revolutionary syndicalism, he did not reject the need for

anarchists to work within the labour movement for libertarian goals (we

will address communist-anarchist criticisms of syndicalism in the next

instalment of this series).

Nor is this to say that all communist-anarchists supported involvement

in the labour movement. Italian anti-organisationalists – most notably

Luigi Galleani – rejected it as reformist, a position echoed by some in

Spain and, as noted above, Kropotkin himself lamented during the Lyons

trial of 1883 that many French anarchists had no interest in reforming

the International. However, these positions were either short-lived or

very much in the minority and so communist-anarchism is just as much a

precursor of syndicalism as the Federalist-wing of the IWMA and the

IWPA. Indeed, Tom Mann praised Kropotkin in “the name of the

Syndicalists in Britain” on his seventieth birthday, noting that while

before the “mass of the [British] working class have hitherto failed to

learn one of the principal lessons the old teacher has been striving to

in part, i. e., the absurdity, the wrongfulness and economic unsoundness

of relying upon State Action to bring about the economic changes

essential for well-being,” they “are learning that great lesson now and

very rapidly […] rely[ing] upon their own powers of Direct Action to

achieve” the “Conquest of Bread.” (“In Appreciation,” Mother Earth,

December 1912) It was no coincidence that he was asked to contribute a

preface to the 1913 English translation of How We Shall Bring About the

Revolution (Comment nous ferons la Révolution, 1909) by Émile Pataud and

Émile Pouget, two leading French revolutionary syndicalists (included in

Direct Struggle Against Capital).

Kropotkin repeated noted that the need for revolutionary unions and

anarchist participation within the labour movement were born within the

IWMA in the early 1870s and he held to these positions throughout his

life. He advocated them in the late 1870s and early 1880s, before

imprisonment stopped his activities (the best account of this remains

Caroline Cahm’s excellent Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary

Anarchism 1872–1886, [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989]). He

returned to these themes in the late 1880s and early 1890s, after their

dramatic confirmation in the London Dock Strike of 1889, and continued

to advocate them until his dying breath – indeed, he reiterated this

position in one of his last letters:

“the trade-union movement […] will become a great power for laying the

foundations of an anti-State communist society. If I were in France,

where at this moment lies the centre of the industrial movement, and if

I were in better health, I would be the first to rush headlong into this

movement in favour of the First International – not the Second or the

Third, which only represent the usurpation of the idea of the workers’

International for the benefit of a party which is not half composed of

workers.” (quoted by G. Woodcock and I. Avakumovic, The Anarchist

Prince: a biographical study of Peter Kropotkin [London: Boardman,

1950], 419)

We end with an article in which Kropotkin summarises his position on the

labour movement. Originally published in Les Temps Nouveaux in May 1907,

it was considered important enough to be translated for Freedom the

following month (June 1907) as “Anarchism and Trade Unions.” As far as

we are aware, it was first reprinted in Direct Struggle Against Capital

and here we present a new translation. This is for two reasons. First,

the original translation differed slightly from the original French text

and, second, it is to modern eyes somewhat dated (“workingmen” and such

like). It should also be noted that Kropotkin uses the term syndicalisme

(or trade unionism) rather than syndicalisme revolutionnaire

(revolutionary trade unionism) but it is clear he is referring to the

latter (writing from Britain, he seems to be utilising the commonplace

use of the former to mean the latter in the radical circles he lived

in). As a good summary of the mainstream communist-anarchist position on

syndicalism and how it advocated syndicalist ideas before the word, it

is worth re-translating for a new generation.

Anarchists and Unions

My dear friend,

I had no intention of intervening in the debate between Pierrot and

Lagardelle, especially since Pierrot conducts it very well, and I have

so many other things to do. But since Lagardelle felt obliged to muddle

the debate by using my name and by insinuating that there exists a

mysterious letter in my name against syndicalism, which Pierrot will not

go so far as to publish – I leave it to the reader to assess this method

[of debate] – I am forced to talk about this letter.

Fortunately, I have found the rough draft, or rather the original, and I

send it to you. Generally, I do not write a rough draft – at least,

until now, I did not take this precaution – but after writing this

letter I added, as you can see, some passages and it was necessary to

copy it. This done, I put the original in a box, to consult one day for

a work which I was preparing on socialism and the development of the

workers movement.

Pierrot is quite right; I refused to write the foreword to the pamphlet

of the Socialist Students not because I disapproved of the substance but

because I disapproved of the form, the shape of the first draft.

Moreover, if anyone is interested, here is what I said:

“Dear Comrades

“I had agreed to write a preface to our pamphlet Les Anarchistes et les

Syndicats [Anarchists and Unions], before having read it. Now, after

reading it, I see that I should have to write, not a preface, but a

critique, and even a quite trenchant one in some places.

“Instead of simply limiting themselves to highlighting arguments that

can be made in favour of taking a more active part in the struggles of

the unions, the authors have proposed general ideas on anarchy, which I

do not share, and in passing they subject those who think differently to

them to petty attacks with which I cannot associate myself.

“The conception of Anarchy that dominated in the collectivist and

federalist International is certainly not that of comrades today and nor

is it mine (p. 10). There has been a whole evolution accomplished during

these 30 years – backwards, perhaps some will say – forward, in my

opinion. Between the Idée[s] sur l’organisation sociale of the Jura

Federation and La Société Nouvelle, La Société au lendemain …, The

Conquest of Bread, etc., there is a whole generation which, in my view,

has neither stayed in the same place nor gone backwards, and which would

have been welcomed by Bakunin himself, if he were alive today.[1]

“The notion ‘Anarchist because Communist’ is yours. Fine. It has,

perhaps, the advantage of emphasising the importance of communism; but

at least admit that it is not shared by a great number of anarchists;

that for many liberty is as cherished as bread (I am amongst those);[2]

― that many call themselves anarchists although communists, and that

absolutely sincere comrades think that communism and anarchy are

incompatible (which does not prevent many of them from discovering that

there is much to be done in the unions).

“In the third part of your pamphlet you allow yourself to be led by your

thesis to the point of making several assertions which you would be hard

pressed to justify. Certainly, when entering a union, the anarchist

makes a concession ― just as he does by going to register the title of

his newspaper, asking for permission for a meeting in Trafalgar Square,

even signing the lease of his housing or his co-operative farm, or by

letting himself be handcuffed without responding with punches. To treat

as ideologues those who demonstrate that there is a concession is

neither just nor justifiable. Without these ‘ideologues’ they would

still flog you in prison, as they do in England.

“By entering a union, we make a concession, and when you say that the

concession is less than is generally believed, that is simply correct.

But let us not deny it. It is one of those concessions which, like the

rest (the authorisation, the lease, the handcuffs), make us hate the

present system more.

“When entering Union Life, we certainly can get carried away by our

surroundings, as in Parliament.[3]

“Only the difference between a union and parliament is that one is an

organisation for fighting Capital, while the other (parliament, of

course) is an organisation for maintaining the State, Authority. One

sometimes becomes revolutionary, the other never does. One (parliament)

represents centralisation, the other (the union) represents autonomy,

etc., etc. One (parliament) is repugnant to us on principle, the other

is only a modifiable and modified aspect of a struggle that most of us

approve of.

“If unions give themselves a social-democratic hierarchy, we could not

enter them until it has been demolished.

In short, there is enough to say on the usefulness, for anarchists, to

try to wrest unions from the politicians and to inspire them with

broader and more revolutionary ideas, without seeking in this to limit

this possibility of action to those who conceive of anarchy in a certain

special way. I know anarchists of all shades who have taken part in

workers unions. Once I work in some trade, it is only natural that I

associate with my comrades in the factory, without asking them to

understand socialism or anarchy in such a way or another. That has

nothing to do with it.”

On that my original [letter] ends, on the eighth page. Probably I would

not have added much [to it]. As for the date, I wrote on this draft:

“Unions and Anarchists. April 1898.”

Now that I have answered M. Lagardelle’s little insinuation, I shall

allow myself to ask him a question: Was there nothing more interesting

to say about syndicalism than to gossip about this letter? Is he reduced

to this? Supposing I had been a rabid enemy of syndicalism, would that

have changed the relationship between anarchy and the union movement in

any way? Are these just personal relationships? And would this not be

the duty of someone who claims to be scientific, specifically to

disentangle the ideas of Anarchy and those of the Union Movement?

Finally, if M. Lagardelle absolutely wished to speak of my ideas on the

union movement, had he not, if it really interested him, my articles in

Le Révolté, La Révolte, and Les Temps Nouveaux. (as I am not French,

they can easily be recognised by their style). Leafing through these

collections for the years 1886–1898, I find during certain times of

workers’ struggles one or two articles in each issue (feature and social

movement articles) wherein I always return to the same ideas: Workers

organisations are the real force capable of accomplishing the social

revolution, after the awakening of the proletariat has been achieved,

first, by individual actions, then by collective actions of strikes,

revolts which are increasingly widened; and where workers organisations

have not let themselves to be captured by the “conquest of power”

gentlemen and have continued to walk hand in hand with the anarchists ―

as they did in Spain ― they obtained, on the one hand, immediate results

(the eight-hour day in [certain] trades in Catalonia), and on the other

made good propaganda for the Social Revolution – that which will come,

not by these lofty gentlemen, but from below, from workers

organisations.

I have perhaps annoyed my readers by returning too often to this

subject, but now I wonder if it would not be useful to make a selection

of these articles to publish them in a volume.

What is most important is, that if we consult the collection of

anarchist newspapers which have followed the Bulletin de la Fédération

Jurassienne and L’Avant-Garde until Les Temps Nouveaux, we see that

those anarchists who have always thought that the labour movement,

organised by occupation, for the direct struggle against Capital – today

in France it is called syndicalism and “direct action” – constitutes

real strength, capable of bringing about and achieving the social

revolution, by the egalitarian transformation of consumption and

production, those of us who have thought in this way for the last

thirty-five years have simply remained faithful to the guiding idea of

the International, as conceived by the French in 1864 (against Marx and

Engels), and such as it was always applied in Catalonia, in the Bernese

Jura, in the valley of Vesdre and partly in Italy. The International was

a great syndicalist movement which accordingly posed everything that

these gentlemen claim to have discovered in syndicalism.

We anarchists do not pretend to have discovered a new idea or a new

religion. We say that we simply remained faithful to the practical idea

that inspired the third awakening of the French proletariat and of the

Latin proletariat in general. We refused to associate ourselves with the

hiding away of this idea, which was done by the Germans and a few French

Jacobins at the Hague Congress in 1872, when taking advantage of the

defeat of the French proletariat, they tried to divert the International

from its economic struggle to launch it into the conquest of power in

the bourgeois State. And now that the proletariat, disgusted with

parliamentary social-democracy, returns to the old idea of direct

international struggle against Capital, and that there are again

gentlemen who are seeking to divert this movement to make it a political

stepping-stone, well, we will fight against them, as we fought against

their forerunners, to always uphold the same idea of the liberation of

the proletariat by the direct and aggressive struggle against its

exploiters.

[1] Today we better understand the necessity of immediate expropriation

and the necessity of Communism. (A note which I have added)

[2] I will just point out the countless strikes for the workers’ human

rights; in general, they are the most bitter. A fact that I often

mentioned in my articles on the labour movement. (A note which I have

added)

[3] Observe England. 40 years ago, the English trade unions were

fighting organisations. Becoming rich, protected by the government,

flattered by the royal family, they lost their combativeness. Workers

often complain of the bourgeois-ism of their immense clique of

officials, like the German social democratic workers. (A note which I

have added)