Syndicalism in France Part 9

The revolutionary spirit which manifested itself in the conception of the general strike expressed itself also in the resolution of the Congress on the army. This resolution demanded the suppression of permanent armies, and invited the syndicats to establish relations with the workingmen in military service, to invite them to social gatherings and to a.s.sist them financially (to establish the so-called _Sou du Soldat_).

The same spirit characterized the report of the Committee which formulated the ideas of the Congress on the "practical means of realizing the international harmony of the workingmen." "Capital," read the report, "in its various forms is international," and it is necessary that labor should also be organized internationally. The slight differences in conditions of life varying from country to country are not important. "The predominating fact everywhere, in all countries, is the division of society into two categories; the producer and the non-producer, the wage-earner and the employer." The report went on to say that the idea of "fatherland" (_patrie_) is a means of protecting the strong against the weak, "an emblem of speculation, of exploitation," "a synonym of property," "a fiction for the workingmen who possess nothing."[119] The practical conclusion of the Committee was to bring together the wage-earners of all countries in an international organization which should be represented by an international secretariat.

[119] _XI Congres National Corporatif_ (Paris, 1900), p. 205.

During 1900-1 the Confederation displayed a little more activity than before. The National Council employed a permanent employee to attend to the business of the Confederation, at first for two, then for four hours a day at a remuneration of 50 and then 100 francs a month. In December, 1900, the Confederation began also to publish its own weekly, _La Voix du Peuple_. Since 1896 the question of a trade-journal had been on the order of the day. It was discussed at every Congress and various plans were recommended in order to obtain the financial means for a daily. The Congress of Paris, in view of the financial impossibility of starting a daily and recognizing that "it was more than ever necessary to create a revolutionary syndicalist organ," decided to publish a weekly. One of the Committees of the National Council was to attend to it.

The _Voix du Peuple_, however, was not in a satisfactory condition at the time of the Congress of Lyons (1901). Pouget, the editor of the paper and the secretary of the Committee of the _Voix du Peuple_, complained that the _Voix du Peuple_ "suffered from the apathy and the negligence of the comrades." Only 260 syndicats subscribed for the paper (out of 2,700 syndicats then in existence). In Paris only 600 copies were sold weekly. The finances showed a deficit for the year of over 6,000 francs. The number of copies printed fell from 12,000-14,000 during the first months to 800 during the later months.

The secretary of the Confederation, M. Guerard, also complained that the "Confederation was anaemic for lack of means." The twenty organizations--federations and syndicats--which adhered to the Confederation during 1900-1901 paid in 1,478 francs. The total income was 4,125 francs. With such limited means the Confederation could do nothing. The Congress of Lyons (1901)--where all these reports were read--was provided for by a subvention from the munic.i.p.ality of Lyons which appropriated 7,000 francs for the purpose.

The Congress of Lyons, nevertheless, showed that the Confederation was beginning to feel a little more confidence in its future. The Congress decided that henceforth only syndicats adhering to the Confederation should take part in its Congresses. Previous to that all syndicats were invited to send a delegate or their mandate to the Congresses of the Confederation. The Congresses, therefore, neither revealed the strength of the Confederation, nor had a binding character, and were significant merely as revealing the state of mind of a large part of the organized workingmen of the time. The decision of the Congress of Lyons was to do away with this condition and to give the Congresses of the Confederation a more coherent and binding character.

Another decision taken by the Congress of Lyons was to admit local and regional federations of syndicats. This was directed against the Federation of Bourses. Though more friendly since 1900, the relations between the two organizations still gave trouble. The question of unity, however, was urged by many workingmen, and the Congress decided to call a special Congress for 1902 to solve this problem.

The Congress of Lyons revealed the further progress of revolutionary ideas among the delegates. There were 226 delegates; these represented 26 Bourses and 8 local federations, comprising 1,035 syndicats with 245,000 members;[120] eight regional federations composed of 264 syndicats with 36,000 members; 8 federations of trade or industry counting 507 syndicats with 196,000 members; 492 syndicats with 60,000 workingmen were represented directly. The exact number of syndicats and of workingmen represented cannot be obtained from these figures, because one syndicat could be represented several times in a local federation, in a Bourse, and in the federation of trade. The delegates, however, came from different parts of the country and were numerous enough to show that the ideas they expressed were accepted by a considerable number of French workingmen.

[120] The growth of syndicats in France since 1895 is shown in the following table:

_Year_ _Syndicats_ _Members_

1895 2,163 419,781 1896 2,243 422,777 1898 2,324 437,793 1899 2,361 419,761 1900 2,685 492,647 1901 3,287 588,832

Of the questions discussed at Lyons three had a particular significance as showing the revolutionary tendency which the Confederation was taking. These were the questions of the general strike, of labor-laws, and of the relations to the political parties.

The "Committee for the propaganda of the General Strike" reported more activity for the year 1900-1 and greater success in its work. The Committee published a brochure on the General Strike of which 50,000 copies were distributed. It collected over 1,500 francs in monthly dues, and its total income amounted to 2,447 francs. It was in touch with a number of sub-committees in the different _Bourses du Travail_, arranged a number of meetings on various occasions, and lent its support to some strikes. The Committee affirmed that the idea of the general strike had spread widely during the year and attributed this fact to the big strikes which had taken place in France after the International Exhibition of 1900 and which had thrown the workingmen into a state of agitation.

At the time the Congress of Lyons was being held, the miners were threatening to strike, if their demands were not granted by the companies. The delegate of the miners was at the Congress, and the discussion that took place under these conditions was very characteristic.

The Committee on the general strike which consisted of fifteen members reported:

The idea of the general strike is sufficiently understood to-day.

In repeatedly putting off the date of its coming, we risk discrediting it forever by enervating the revolutionary energies.

What better occasion to realize it!

The miners will give the signal on the first of November; the working-cla.s.s--in case of a revolution--counts upon this movement which must bring them their economic liberation.

And the report of the Committee went on to point out the conditions which in its opinion indicated "that the moment had come to try the general strike (_faire la Greve generale_) with strong chances of success."[121]

[121] _XII Congres National Corporatif_ (Lyons, 1901), p. 170.

The delegate from the miners said: "If you wish to join us, we will be able not only to strike, but to bring about the revolution; if we were made sure of the co-operation of all trades, even if it were necessary to wait for it two, three, or even six months, we are ready to grant you this concession."[122]

[122] _Ibid._, pp. 177-8.

The following motion was then adopted:

The Congress declares that the General Strike cannot be the means merely of obtaining amelioration for any category of workingmen.

Its aim can be only the complete emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat through the violent expropriation of the capitalist cla.s.s.

The Congress, in view of the situation, declares that the movement which may take place in favor of the miners, the importance or character of which n.o.body can foresee and which may go to the point of a general emanc.i.p.ation, will be in any case a movement of solidarity which will not impair in the least the revolutionary principle of the general strike of all workingmen.[123]

[123] _Ibid._, p. 179.

The delegate of the Typographical Union (_La Federation du Livre_) combated the idea of the general strike and argued that it was impossible in view of the small number of organized workingmen. But his argument had no effect on the Congress. It was rejected as of no importance because the minority of organized workingmen could carry away with it the majority.

The question of labor laws was the subject of an animated discussion at the Congress because of its importance. The answer given to this question was to determine the att.i.tude of the General Confederation to legislative reforms and to the State in general.

The question was a very practical one. The government of Waldeck-Rousseau (22 June, 1899-6 June, 1902), in which the socialist, Millerand, was Minister of Commerce and Industry, outlined a number of labor laws which touched upon the most vital questions of the labor movement. The most important of these law-projects were on strikes and arbitration, on the composition of the superior Council of Labor, on the inst.i.tution of Councils of Labor, and on the modification of the law of 1884.

The policy of the government in planning these laws was clear and expressly stated. It was the continuation and accentuation of the policy which had guided M. Waldeck-Rousseau in 1884 when he was Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet of Jules Ferry, and which had then found partial expression in the ministerial circular on the application of the new law on syndicats.

This "Circular," sent out to the Prefects August 25, 1884, pointed out to the Prefects that it was the duty of the State not merely to watch over the strict observation of the law, but "to favor the spirit of a.s.sociation" among the workingmen and "to stimulate" the latter to make use of the new right. In the conception of the government the syndicats were to be "less a weapon of struggle" than "an instrument of material, moral and intellectual progress." It was "the wish of the Government and of the Chambers to see the propagation, in the largest possible measure, of the trade a.s.sociations and of the inst.i.tutions which they were destined to engender" (such as old-age pension funds, mutual credit banks, libraries, co-operative societies, etc.) and the government expected the Prefects "to lend active a.s.sistance" in the organization of syndicats and in the creation of syndical inst.i.tutions.[124]

[124] See the "Circulaire" in G. Severac, _Guide Pratique des Syndicats Professionnels_ (Paris, 1908), pp. 125-136.

The aim of Waldeck-Rousseau was to bring about the "alliance of the bourgeoisie and of the working-cla.s.s"[125] which Gambetta and other republican statesmen had untiringly preached as the only condition of maintaining the Republic. In the period 1899-1902 this policy seemed still more indispensable. It was the time when the agitation caused by the Dreyfus affair a.s.sumed the character of a struggle between the republican and anti-republican forces of France. Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, and Anarchists were fighting hand in hand against Monarchists, Nationalists, Anti-Semites and Clericals. The cabinet of Waldeck-Rousseau const.i.tuted itself a "Cabinet of Republican Defense"

and it sought to attain its end by securing the support of all republican elements of the country. This was the cause which prompted Waldeck-Rousseau to invite a socialist, Millerand, to enter his cabinet and to accentuate his policy of attaching the working-cla.s.s to the Republic by a series of protective labor laws.

[125] G. Hanoteaux, _Modern France_ (tr. by J. C. Tarver, New York, 1903-09), vol. ii, p. 181.

The policy of the Government was clearly expressed by Millerand in the Chamber of Deputies on November 23, 1899. "It has appeared to me," said he, "that the best means for bringing back the working ma.s.ses to the Republic, is to show them not by words, but by facts, that the republican government is above everything else the government of the small and of the weak."[126]

[126] A. Lavy, _L'Oeuvre de Millerand_ (Paris, 1902), p. 2.

The facts by which M. Millerand undertook to show this were a number of decrees by which the government tried to enforce a stricter observation of labor-laws already in existence and a series of new law-projects for the future protection of labor, such as the bill on a ten-hour day, which became law on March 30, 1900. As M. Millerand expressed it, this law was "a measure of moralization, of solidarity, and of social pacification."

Social pacification was the supreme aim of M. Millerand and of the government. M. Millerand hoped to attain this by calling workingmen to partic.i.p.ation in the legislative activities of the Republic, by accustoming them to peaceable discussions with employers, and by regulating the more violent forms of the economic struggle.

A decree from September 1, 1899, modified the const.i.tution of the Superior Council of Labor, in existence since 1891, so that it should henceforth consist of 22 elected workingmen, 22 elected employers and 22 members appointed by the Minister from among the deputies of the Chamber, the senators and other persons representing "general interests." The Superior Council of Labor was "an instrument of study, of information and of consultation" in matters of labor legislation. It studied law-projects affecting the conditions of labor, made its own suggestions to the government, but had no legislative powers.

The decree of M. Millerand was particularly significant in one respect: it called upon the workingmen organized in the syndicats to elect fifteen members of the Superior Council of Labor. M. Millerand pointed out the significance of this measure in a speech delivered on June 5, 1900. Said he:

The workingmen are henceforth warned, that in order to partic.i.p.ate through delegates sprung from their own ranks in the elaboration of economic reforms which concern them most, it is necessary and sufficient that they enter the ranks of that great army of which the syndicats are the battalions. How can they refuse to do this?

By inducing them to do so we believe that we are defending their legitimate interests at the same time that we are serving the cause of social peace in this country.[127]

[127] A. Lavy, _op. cit._, p. 66.

The "Councils of Labor" were organized by two decrees from September 17, 1900, and from January 2, 1901. Composed of an equal number of workingmen and of employers, these Councils had for their princ.i.p.al mission to enlighten the government, as well as workingmen and employers, on the actual and necessary conditions of labor, to facilitate thereby industrial harmony and general agreement between the interested parties, to furnish in cases of collective conflicts competent mediators, and to inform the public authorities on the effects produced by labor legislation.[128]

[128] _Ibid._, p. 79.

M. Millerand emphasized that the Councils of Labor were to bring workingmen and employers together for the discussion of "their general interests" and that this new inst.i.tution would be one more motive for the utilization of the law of 1884 on syndicats. "To encourage by all means the formation of these trade-a.s.sociations, so useful for the progress of social peace," wrote the Minister in his decree, "is a task which a republican government cannot neglect."[129]

[129] A. Lavy, _op. cit._, p. 80.