Contractual Co-ordination: Edouard Berth, Maxime Leroy and Anarchist Pluralism

Abstract

Between 1902 and 1910, le syndicalisme révolutionnaire was the official doctrine of the French labour movement. The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), founded in 1895 and strengthened by its fusion with the local Bourses du Travail in 1902, mobilized for nearly a decade the majority of unionized French workers around slogans of class struggle, action directe and the destruction of the state. It is not, however, with union practice but with political theory that this chapter concerns itself. For, contrary to the claims of some of its defenders, syndicalism was not only an ad hoc product of day-to-day labour action, it was also a sophisticated theoretical construct. Syndicalism, together with the orthodox Marxism of Jules Guesde and the parliamentary socialism of Jean Jaurès, came to enjoy a place in the pantheon of French prewar socialist doctrines. Syndicalism, however, does not easily lend itself to the curiosity of students of intellectual history. It cannot boast an obvious and unchallenged spiritual father, and presents itself in the form of singularly fragmented works.

In a society where all groups have the tendency to reproduce the authoritarian foundations of the workshop and the state, the revolutionary syndicats offer the living example of an organisation founded on liberty.

(Hubert Lagardelle)¹