205-558: The Autogestión Liberadora Buenos Aires (ALBA) is a left-wing political party in Argentina . It contested the 2005 legislative elections for Buenos Aires Province and Buenos Aires City deputies in alliance with the Encuentro Amplio [1] . The alliance performed badly in the election, gaining less than 1% in the capital and losing all its legislators at a national level. This article about an Argentine political party
410-451: A mixed economy with an empowered public sector and a thriving private sector . Centre-left policies tend to favour limited state intervention in matters pertaining to the public interest . In several countries, the terms far-left and radical left have been associated with many varieties of anarchism , autonomism and communism . They have been used to describe groups that advocate anti-capitalism and eco-terrorism . In France,
615-480: A Catholic priest and IWW leader, "dropping pieces of paper into a hole in a box never did achieve emancipation for the working class, and to my thinking it will never achieve it." Syndicalist trade unions declared their political neutrality and autonomy from political parties. Syndicalists reasoned that political parties grouped people according to their political views, uniting members of different classes, while unions were to be purely working-class organizations, uniting
820-472: A bastion of radicalism since 1905, against what they saw as the rule of a small number of bureaucrats. Anarchists hailed the rebellion as the start of the third revolution. The government reacted by having anarchists throughout the country arrested, including a number of syndicalist leaders. The Russian syndicalist movement was thereby defeated. Syndicalists in the West who had opposed World War I reacted gushingly to
1025-478: A belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished through radical means that change the nature of the society they are implemented in. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated." Within
1230-660: A black fellow worker against a racist insult, an IWW organizer in Louisiana insisted that "he is a man, a union man, an IWW—a MAN! ... and he has proven it by his action." During World War I, one of the IWW's anti-war slogans was "Don't Be a Soldier! Be a Man!" In some cases, syndicalist attitudes towards women changed. In 1901, the CGT's agricultural union in southern France was hostile to women; by 1909, this had changed. The CNT, initially hostile to independent women's organizations, worked closely with
1435-458: A broader audience. Sorel presented himself as the premier theorist of syndicalism and was frequently thought of as such but was not a part of the movement, and his influence on syndicalism was insignificant, except in Italy and Poland. The extent to which syndicalist positions reflected merely the views of leaders and to what extent those positions were shared by syndicalist organizations' rank-and-file
1640-619: A capitalist bourgeois ideology. Marxists were responsible for organizing the first International Working Women's Day events. The women's liberation movement is closely connected to the New Left and other new social movements which openly challenged the orthodoxies of the Old Left. Socialist feminism as exemplified by the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women and Marxist feminism , spearheaded by Selma James , saw themselves as
1845-587: A central feature of political debates on the Left. During the French Revolution, nationalism was a key policy of the Republican Left. The Republican Left advocated for civic nationalism and argued that the nation is a "daily plebiscite" formed by the subjective "will to live together". Related to revanchism , the belligerent will to take revenge against Germany and retake control of Alsace-Lorraine , nationalism
2050-570: A desire for greater economic equality and workers rights with demands for environmental protection. Democratic socialist Bolivian president Evo Morales has traced environmental degradation to capitalist consumerism , stating that "[t]he Earth does not have enough for the North to live better and better, but it does have enough for all of us to live well". James Hansen , Noam Chomsky , Raj Patel , Naomi Klein , The Yes Men and Dennis Kucinich hold similar views. In climate change mitigation ,
2255-720: A distinction is made between the centre-left and the left represented by the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party and the far-left as represented by anarcho-communists , Maoists and Trotskyists . The United States Department of Homeland Security defines "left-wing extremism" as groups that "seek to bring about change through violent revolution, rather than through established political processes". Similar to far-right politics , extremist far-left politics have motivated political violence , radicalization , genocide , terrorism , sabotage and damage to property,
SECTION 10
#17330928803992460-523: A firing squad, and children were deprived of any religious education outside of the home. Today in the Western world , those on the Left generally support secularization and the separation of church and state. However, religious beliefs have also been associated with many left-wing movements such as the progressive movement , the Social Gospel movement, the civil rights movement , the anti-war movement ,
2665-423: A force within left-wing politics. The influential Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , published amidst the wave of revolutions of 1848 across Europe, asserted that all of human history is defined by class struggle . They predicted that a proletarian revolution would eventually overthrow bourgeois capitalism and create a stateless , moneyless and classless communist society . It
2870-460: A general strike, which continued after FORA IX reached a settlement. Vigilantes, supported by business and the military, attacked unions and militants. In all, between 100 and 700 people died in what became known as the Tragic Week . Nevertheless, strikes continued to increase and both FORA V and IX grew. The United States underwent an increase in labor militancy during the post-war period. 1919 saw
3075-527: A growing numbers of casualties at the front eroded the enthusiasm and patriotism the outbreak of war had aroused. Prices were on the rise, food was scarce, and it became increasingly clear that the war would not be short. In Germany, food shortages led to demonstrations and riots in a number of cities in the summer of 1916. At the same time, anti-war demonstrations started. Strikes picked up from around 1916 or 1917 on across Europe and soldiers began to mutiny . Workers distrusted their socialist leaders who had joined
3280-641: A journal mainly for miners in Charleroi , Belgium, urged its readers to follow "the example of our confederated friends of France". The IWW's newspapers published articles on French syndicalism, particularly the tactic of sabotage and the CGT's La Vie Ouvrière carried articles about Britain's labor movement by the British syndicalist Tom Mann . Migration played a key role in spreading syndicalist ideas. The Argentine Regional Workers' Federation ( Federación Obrera Regional Argentina , FORA), openly anarchist by 1905,
3485-549: A left-wing response to The Limits to Growth model that predicted catastrophic resource depletion and spurred environmentalism, postulating that capitalist technologies were the key cause responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to human population pressures. Environmental degradation can be seen as a class or equity issue, as environmental destruction disproportionately affects poorer communities and countries. Several left-wing or socialist groupings have an overt environmental concern and several green parties contain
3690-526: A more restrictive definition of syndicalism based on five criteria: This definition excludes the IWW and the Canadian One Big Union (OBU), which sought to unite all workers in one general organization. Peterson proposes the broader category revolutionary industrial unionism to encompass syndicalism, groups like the IWW and the OBU, and others. Revolutionary industrial unionism, part of syndicalism in
3895-471: A number of labor disputes. Finally, van der Linden and Thorpe point to spatial and geographical factors that shaped the rise of syndicalism. Workers who would otherwise not have had an inclination to syndicalism joined because syndicalism was dominant in their locales. For example, workers in the Canadian and American West were generally more radical and drawn to the IWW and One Big Union than their counterparts in
4100-575: A number of organizations or currents within the labor movement that did not identify as syndicalist . They apply the label to one big unionists or industrial unionists in North America and Australia, Larkinists (named after the Irish ITGWU leader James Larkin ) in Ireland, and groups that identify as revolutionary industrialists, revolutionary unionists, anarcho-syndicalists , or councilists. This includes
4305-721: A part of the Left by their contemporaries. Feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft was influenced by Thomas Paine . Many notable leftists have been strong supporters of gender equality such as Marxist philosophers and activists Rosa Luxemburg , Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai , anarchist philosophers and activists such as Virginia Bolten , Emma Goldman and Lucía Sánchez Saornil and democratic socialist philosophers and activists such as Helen Keller and Annie Besant . However, Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Alexandra Kollontai, who are supporters of radical social equality for women and have rejected and opposed liberal feminism because they considered it to be
SECTION 20
#17330928803994510-482: A part of the Left that challenges male-dominated and sexist structures within the Left. The connection between left-wing ideologies and the struggle for LGBTQ rights also has an important history. Prominent socialists who were involved in early struggles for LGBTQ rights include Edward Carpenter , Oscar Wilde , Harry Hay , Bayard Rustin and Daniel Guérin , among others. The New Left is also strongly supportive of LGBTQ rights and liberation, having been instrumental in
4715-563: A position within the political mainstream that accepts capitalism and a market economy. The terms far-left and ultra-left are used for positions that are more radical , more strongly rejecting capitalism and mainstream representative democracy , instead advocating for a socialist society based on economic democracy and direct democracy , representing economic, political and social democracy. The centre-left includes social democrats , social liberals , progressives and greens . Centre-left supporters accept market allocation of resources in
4920-429: A rather limited practical struggle against World War I, they also looked to challenge the war on an ideological or cultural level. They pointed to the horrors of war and spurned efforts to legitimate it as something noble. German syndicalists drew attention to the death, injury, destruction, and misery that the war wrought. German, Swedish, Dutch, and Spanish syndicalists denounced nationalism with Tierra y Libertad ,
5125-434: A result of hundreds of arrests, ultimately forcing public officials to rescind such laws. Sabotage ranged from slow or inefficient work to destruction of machinery and physical violence. French railway and postal workers cut telegraph and signal lines during strikes in 1909 and 1910. The final step towards revolution according to syndicalists would be a general strike. According to Griffuelhes, it would be "the curtain drop on
5330-637: A revolutionary wave, inspired in part by Russia, swept Europe in the following years. In Germany, strikes and protests against food shortage, mainly by women, escalated and by 1917 had eroded public confidence in the government. The abdication of Wilhelm II in November 1918 after the Kiel mutiny by sailors sparked an insurrectionary movement throughout the country that led to the German Revolution of 1918–19 . The syndicalist FVdG, which had just 6,000 members before
5535-456: A ruling elite of individuals) while it prepares a population for capitalist exploitation. Within anarchism, this subject has been extensively discussed by Rudolf Rocker in his book titled Nationalism and Culture and by the works of Fredy Perlman such as Against His-Story, Against Leviathan and The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism . The failure of revolutions in Germany and Hungary in
5740-632: A series of successful strikes in 1913 in Mexico City and central Mexico. After the Constitutionalist Army occupied the capital in 1914, syndicalists allied with the government it established to defeat rural forces such as the Zapatistas and therefore received government support. Once those forces had been suppressed, this alliance broke apart and the Casa campaigned for workers' control of factories and
5945-674: A strong socialist presence. The Green Party of England and Wales features an eco-socialist group, the Green Left , which was founded in June 2005. Its members held several influential positions within the party, including both the former Principal Speakers Siân Berry and Derek Wall , himself an eco-socialist and Marxist academic. In Europe, several green left political parties such as the European United Left–Nordic Green Left combine traditional social-democratic values such as
6150-505: A syndicalist journal in Barcelona, calling it a "grotesque mentality". The Dutch newspaper De Arbeid criticized nationalism, because "it finds its embodiment in the state and is the denial of class antagonism between the haves and the have-nots". German and Spanish syndicalists went further still by putting into question the concept of nationhood itself and dismissing it as a mere social construct. The Germans observed that most inhabitants of
6355-404: A temporary state between the capitalist state of affairs and a communist society . Marx defined the proletariat as salaried workers, in contrast to the lumpenproletariat , who he defined as the outcasts of society such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers, buskers, criminals and prostitutes. The political relevance of farmers has divided the left. In Das Kapital , Marx scarcely mentioned
Autogestión Liberadora Buenos Aires - Misplaced Pages Continue
6560-468: A tired old scene of several centuries, and the curtain raising on another". Syndicalists remained vague about the society they envisioned to replace capitalism, stating that it was impossible to foresee in detail. Labor unions were seen as being the embryo of a new society in addition to being the means of struggle within the old. Syndicalists generally agreed that in a free society production would be managed by workers. The state apparatus would be replaced by
6765-585: A viable strategy because the general strike became a practical possibility. Although it had been advocated before, there were not sufficient numbers of wage workers to bring society to a standstill and they had not achieved a sufficient degree of organization and solidarity until the 1890s, according van der Linden and Thorpe. Several general or political strikes then took place before World War I: in 1893 and in 1902 in Belgium, in 1902 and in 1909 in Sweden, in 1903 in
6970-614: Is bourgeois nationalism . Some Marxists, together with others on the left, view nationalism , racism (including antisemitism) and religion as divide and conquer tactics used by the ruling classes to prevent the working class from uniting against them in solidarity with one another. Left-wing movements have often taken up anti-imperialist positions. Anarchism has developed a critique of nationalism that focuses on nationalism's role in justifying and consolidating state power and domination. Through its unifying goal, nationalism strives for centralisation (both in specific territories and in
7175-464: Is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that, through industrial unionism , seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes and other forms of direct action , with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership . Syndicalist unions first emerged in Spain and North America in
7380-447: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism , often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as
7585-486: Is a matter of dispute. Commenting on French syndicalism, the historian Peter Stearns concludes that most workers did not identify with syndicalism's long-range goals, and that syndicalist hegemony accounts for the relatively slow growth of the French labor movement as a whole. He says that workers who joined the syndicalist movement were on the whole indifferent to doctrinal questions, their membership in syndicalist organizations
7790-571: Is but one bargain that the Industrial Workers of the World will make with the employing class – complete surrender of the means of production." The Argentine Regional Workers' Federation ( Federación Obrera Regional Argentina , FORA) and the OBU accepted such deals, and others began accepting them eventually. Similarly, syndicalist unions did not work to build large strike funds, for fear that they would create bureaucracy separate from
7995-416: Is justified to group together such a wide range of organizations because their similar modes of action or practice outweigh their ideological differences. Others, such as Larry Peterson and Erik Olssen , disagree with this broad definition. According to Olssen, this understanding has a "tendency to blur the distinctions between industrial unionism, syndicalism, and revolutionary socialism ". Peterson gives
8200-421: Is sometimes used to justify hostility towards supranational organizations. Left-wing nationalism can also refer to any form of nationalism which emphasizes a leftist working-class populist agenda that seeks to overcome exploitation or oppression by other nations. Many Third World anti-colonialist movements have adopted leftist and socialist ideas. Third-Worldism is a tendency within leftist thought that regards
8405-627: Is used for social and cultural politics. In the United Kingdom during the 1980s, the term hard left was applied to supporters of Tony Benn such as the Campaign Group and those involved in the London Labour Briefing newspaper as well as Trotskyist groups such as Militant and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty . In the same period, the term soft left was applied to supporters of
Autogestión Liberadora Buenos Aires - Misplaced Pages Continue
8610-611: The 1917–1919 Brazil strike movement and cycle of labor struggles. It included a general strike in 1917, a failed uprising in 1918 inspired by the Russian Revolution, and a number of smaller strikes. The movement was put down by increased organization by employers to resist workers' demands and by government repression, including the closure of unions, arrests, deportations of foreign militants, and violence, with some 200 workers killed in São Paulo alone. In Argentina, FORA had split into
8815-568: The Bible . In the late 19th century, the Protestant Social Gospel movement arose in the United States which integrated progressive and socialist thought with Christianity through faith-based social activism. Other left-wing religious movements include Buddhist socialism, Jewish socialism and Islamic socialism. There have been alliances between the left and anti-war Muslims , such as
9020-969: The Democratic and Republican parties, or as synonyms for liberalism and conservatism , respectively. Since the Right was populist, both in the Western and the Eastern Bloc , anything viewed as avant-garde art was called leftist across Europe, thus the identification of Picasso's Guernica as "leftist" in Europe and the condemnation of the Russian composer Shostakovich 's opera ( The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District ) in Pravda as follows: "Here we have 'leftist' confusion instead of natural, human music". The spectrum of left-wing politics ranges from centre-left to far-left or ultra-left . The term centre-left describes
9225-729: The Dublin Lockout . After Larkin left Ireland in 1914, James Connolly took over leadership of the union. Because of the organization's weakness, Connolly allied it along with its paramilitary force, the Irish Citizen Army , with the Irish Republican Brotherhood . Together, they instigated the Easter Rising , seeking to weaken the British Empire and hoping that the insurrection would spread throughout Europe. The uprising
9430-751: The Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD), and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA). Although they did not regard themselves as syndicalists, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) (nicknamed "Wobblies") in the United States, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), and the Canadian One Big Union (OBU) are considered by most historians to belong to this current. The International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT), which
9635-763: The French Section of the Workers' International in the struggle against the Three-Year Law of 1913 , which extended conscription. During the Spanish Civil War , the CNT, whose policy barred anyone who had been a candidate for political office or had participated in political endeavors from representing it, was intimately connected with the Iberian Anarchist Federation ( Federación Anarquista Ibérica , FAI). In
9840-428: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States, which claimed its industrial unionism was "a higher type of revolutionary labor organization than that proposed by the syndicalists". Van der Linden and Thorpe use syndicalism to refer to "all revolutionary, direct-actionist organizations". Darlington proposes that syndicalism be defined as "revolutionary trade unionism". He and van der Linden argue that it
10045-581: The Republicans and Eugène Etienne , the president of the Parliamentary Colonial Group. After the antisemitic Dreyfus Affair in which officer Alfred Dreyfus was falsely convicted of sedition and exiled to a penal colony in 1894 before being exonerated in 1906, nationalism in the form of Boulangism increasingly became associated with the far-right. The Marxist social class theory of proletarian internationalism asserts that members of
10250-651: The Respect Party and the Stop the War Coalition in Britain. In France, the left has been divided over moves to ban the hijab from schools, with some leftists supporting a ban based on the separation of church and state in accordance with the principle of laïcité and other leftists opposing the prohibition based on personal and religious freedom. Social progressivism is another common feature of modern leftism, particularly in
10455-747: The Roman Catholic Church and supporting atheism and the separation of church and state , ushering in a policy known as laïcité . Karl Marx asserted that "religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". In Soviet Russia, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin originally embraced an ideological principle which professed that all religion would eventually atrophy and resolved to eradicate organized Christianity and other religious institutions. In 1918, 10 Russian Orthodox hierarchs were summarily executed by
SECTION 50
#173309288039910660-609: The Russian Provisional Government . Immediately, anarchist groups emerged. Russian syndicalists organized around the journal Golos Truda ( The Voice of Labor ), which had a circulation of around 25,000, and the Union of Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda. Anarchists found themselves agreeing with the Bolsheviks led by Lenin, who returned to Russia in April, as both sought to bring down the provisional government. Lenin abandoned
10865-543: The Saint-Imier International and later the International Workers' Association (IWA–AIT) . The Second International (1888–1916) became divided over the issue of World War I . Those who opposed the war, among them Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg , saw themselves as further to the left. In the United States, leftists such as social liberals , progressives and trade unionists were influenced by
11070-517: The Seattle general strike , large miners' strikes, the Boston police strike , and the nationwide steel strike of 1919 . The IWW had been nearly destroyed in the previous two years by local criminal syndicalism laws, the federal government, and vigilante violence. It attempted to take credit for some of the strikes, although in reality it was too weak to play a significant role. The First Red Scare intensified
11275-618: The Second Republic was an attempt by the Left to re-assert itself after the 1848 Revolution , but only a small portion of the population supported this. In the mid-19th century, nationalism , socialism , democracy and anti-clericalism became key features of the French Left. After Napoleon III 's 1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire , Marxism began to rival radical republicanism and utopian socialism as
11480-471: The Third Estate ) generally sat to the left of the presiding member's chair in parliament while the ones in favour of the royal veto privilege sat on its right. That habit began in the original French National Assembly . Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right was between supporters of the French republic and those of the monarchy 's privileges. The June Days uprising during
11685-490: The Western world include strong opposition to the death penalty , torture , mass surveillance , and the war on drugs , and support for abortion rights, cognitive liberty , LGBTQ rights including legal recognition of same-sex marriage , same-sex adoption of children, the right to change one's legal gender , distribution of contraceptives , and public funding of embryonic stem-cell research . The desire for an expansion of social and civil liberties often overlaps that of
11890-405: The anarcho-communist FORA V and the syndicalist FORA IX. While FORA V called for a futile general strike in 1915, FORA IX was more careful. It called off general strikes it had planned in 1917 and 1918. In January 1919, five workers were by the authorities during a strike led by a union with tenuous links to FORA V. At the funeral, police killed another 39 workers. Both FORA organizations called for
12095-471: The anti-authoritarian wing of the early International Workingmen's Association (IWA), the first international socialist organization formed in 1864. Its most successful early leader, Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin , came to believe that worker organizations should consider using force to advance their cause, when necessary. He and his followers advocated the general strike, rejected electoral politics, and anticipated workers' organizations replacing rule by
12300-516: The centre-left , especially social democrats who adopted the Third Way . Left-wing politics are typically associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions. Other leftists believe in Marxian economics , named after the economic theories of Karl Marx . Some distinguish Marx's economic theories from his political philosophy, arguing that Marx's approach to understanding
12505-598: The class struggle in the minds of many workers, as these parties were thought to be overly concerned with building the parties themselves and with electoral politics than with the class struggle, and had therefore lost their original revolutionary edge. The socialists preached the inevitability of socialism but were in practice bureaucratic and reformist. Similarly, the trade unions frequently allied with those parties, equally growing in numbers, were denounced for their expanding bureaucracies, their centralization, and for failing to represent workers' interests. Between 1902 and 1913,
SECTION 60
#173309288039912710-618: The displacement of Keynesianism and post-war social democracy . One of the first actions of Ed Miliband , the Labour Party leader who succeeded Blair and Brown, was the rejection of the New Labour label and a promise to abandon the Third Way and turn back to the left. However, Labour's voting record in the House of Commons from 2010 to 2015 indicated that the Labour Party under Miliband had maintained
12915-417: The left–right political spectrum , Left and Right were coined during the French Revolution , referring to the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly . Those who sat on the left generally opposed the ancien régime and the Bourbon monarchy and supported the Revolution, the creation of a democratic republic and the secularisation of society while those on the right were supportive of
13120-413: The libertarian movement. Public education was a subject of great interest to groundbreaking social progressives such as Lester Frank Ward and John Dewey , who believed that a democratic society and system of government was practically impossible without a universal and comprehensive nationwide system of education. Various counterculture and anti-war movements in the 1960s and 1970s were associated with
13325-416: The nationalization of foreign capital. It contributed to a rise in labor unrest that began in mid-1915. It led general strikes in May and in July–August 1916 in greater Mexico City. The latter was quelled by the army, marking the defeat of the Casa , which was also suppressed. In Portugal, the 5 October 1910 revolution that led to the deposition of the king was followed by a strike wave throughout
13530-414: The theory of historical trajectory , which represented the idea that capitalism is a necessary stage on Russia's path to communism, dismissed the establishment of a parliament in favor of that power being taken by soviets , and called for the abolition of the police, the army, the bureaucracy, and finally the state – all sentiments syndicalists shared. Although the syndicalists also welcomed
13735-403: The welfare state through industrial democracy and the social market to the nationalization of the economy and central planning , to the anarcho-syndicalist advocacy of a council-based and self-managed anarchist communism . During the Industrial Revolution , leftists supported trade unions . At the beginning of the 20th century, many leftists advocated strong government intervention in
13940-476: The working class should act in solidarity with working people in other countries in pursuit of a common class interest , rather than only focusing on their own countries. Proletarian internationalism is summed up in the slogan: " Workers of the world, unite! ", the last line of The Communist Manifesto . Union members had learned that more members meant more bargaining power. Taken to an international level, leftists argued that workers should act in solidarity with
14145-399: The " proletariat can and must build the socialist society in one country". In April 1925, Nikolai Bukharin elaborated on the issue in his brochure titled Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the West-European Proletariat? , whose position was adopted as state policy after Stalin's January 1926 article titled On the Issues of Leninism (К вопросам ленинизма)
14350-431: The 1870s, before rising to prominence in France and later emerging on other continents. Syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II . Major syndicalist organizations included the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France, the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI),
14555-401: The 1915 Zimmerwald conference . They faced considerable difficulties putting up meaningful resistance against the war. The government called up militants to the Army, including Monatte, who considered refusing the order and being summarily executed; he decided this would be futile. Syndicalist organizations in other countries nearly unanimously opposed the war. In neutral Spain, José Negre of
14760-399: The 1918–1920 years ended Bolshevik hopes for an imminent world revolution and led to the promotion of the doctrine of socialism in one country by Joseph Stalin . In the first edition of his book titled Osnovy Leninizma ( Foundations of Leninism , 1924), Stalin argued that revolution in one country is insufficient. By the end of that year in the second edition of the book, he argued that
14965-537: The 1970s onwards, environmentalism became an increasing concern of the left, with social movements and several unions campaigning on environmental issues and causes. In Australia, the left-wing Builders Labourers Federation , led by the communist Jack Mundy, united with environmentalists to place green bans on environmentally destructive development projects. Several segments of the socialist and Marxist left consciously merged environmentalism and anti-capitalism into an eco-socialist ideology. Barry Commoner articulated
15170-526: The 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the term left-wing has also been applied to a broad range of culturally liberal social movements, including the civil rights movement , feminist movement , LGBT rights movement , abortion-rights movements , multiculturalism , anti-war movement and environmental movement as well as a wide range of political parties . The following positions are typically associated with left-wing politics. Left-leaning economic beliefs range from Keynesian economics and
15375-533: The 66-member Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee , which included four anarchists, among them the syndicalist Shatov. On 25 October, this committee led the October Revolution ; after taking control of the Winter Palace and key points in the capital with little resistance, it proclaimed a Soviet government. Anarchists were jubilant at the toppling of the provisional government. They were concerned about
15580-473: The Australian syndicalist movement were influenced by them, as well as older socialist notions. According to Darlington, anarchism, Marxism, and revolutionary trade unionism equally contributed to syndicalism, in addition to various influences in specific countries, including Blanquism , anti-clericalism , republicanism , and agrarian radicalism . Bill Haywood , an American syndicalist and leading figure in
15785-469: The British Labour Party who were perceived to be more moderate and closer to the centre, accepting Keynesianism . Under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown , the Labour Party adopted the Third Way and rebranded itself as New Labour in order to promote the notion that it was less left-wing than it had been in the past to accommodate the neoliberal trend arising since the 1970s with
15990-537: The CNT declared: "Let Germany win, let France win, it is all the same to the workers." The CNT insisted that syndicalists could support neither side in an imperialist conflict. A wave of pro-British sentiment swept Ireland during the war, although the ITGWU and the rest of the Irish labor movement opposed it, and half of the ITGWU's membership enlisted in the British military. The ITGWU had also been significantly weakened in 1913 in
16195-449: The Chicago labor movement of the 1880s. They were involved in the nationwide struggle for an eight-hour day . On 3 May 1886, the police killed three striking workers at a demonstration in Chicago. Seven policemen and four workers were killed the following day when someone, possibly a police member, threw a bomb into the crowd. Four anarchists were eventually executed for allegedly conspiring to
16400-482: The Earth. This principle is reflected in much of the historical left-wing thought and literature that came afterwards, although there were disagreements about what this entailed. Both Karl Marx and the early socialist philosopher and scholar William Morris arguably had a concern for environmental matters. According to Marx, "[e]ven an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not
16605-625: The East, so we believed, the sun of freedom rose." The Spanish CNT declared: "Bolshevism is the name, but the idea is that of all revolutions: economic freedom. ... Bolshevism is the new life for which we struggle, it is freedom, harmony, justice, it is the life that we want and will enforce in the world." Borghi recalled: "We exulted in its victories. We trembled at its risks. ... We made a symbol and an altar of its name, its dead, its living and its heroes." He called on Italians to "do as they did in Russia". Indeed,
16810-400: The East. Similarly, southern workers were more drawn to syndicalism in Italy. According to Altena, the emergence of syndicalism must be analyzed at the level of local communities. Only differences in local social and economic structures explain why some towns had a strong syndicalist presence, while others did not. Syndicalism was not informed by theory or a systematically elaborated ideology
17015-567: The FVdG, although industrial unionists, whose influence was dwindling, were also involved. Rudolf Rocker , an anarchist recently returned to Germany after spending several years in London, wrote the FAUD's program. Class struggle peaked in Italy in the years 1919–1920, which became known as the biennio rosso or red biennium. Throughout this wave of labor radicalism, syndicalists, along with anarchists, formed
17220-508: The French General Confederation of Labor ( Confédération générale du travail , CGT) came to use the term to describe its brand of unionism. Revolutionary syndicalism , or more commonly syndicalism with the revolutionary implied, was then adapted to a number of languages by unionists following the French model. Many scholars, including Ralph Darlington , Marcel van der Linden , and Wayne Thorpe, apply syndicalism to
17425-417: The French president's call for national unity by agreeing to a no-strike pledge and to resolve labor disputes through arbitration and by actively participating in the French war effort. Most of its members of military age were conscripted without resistance and its ranks shrank from 350,000 in 1913 to 49,000 dues-paying members in 1915. CGT leaders defended this course by arguing that France's war against Germany
17630-479: The French radicals worked within existing unions to infuse them with their revolutionary spirit. Some found existing unions entirely unsuitable and built federations of their own, a strategy known as dual unionism . American syndicalists formed the IWW, although William Z. Foster later abandoned the IWW after a trip to France and set up the Syndicalist League of North America (SLNA), which sought to radicalize
17835-504: The German Free Trade Unions ' membership grew by 350% but its bureaucracy by more than 1900%. Another common explanation for the rise of syndicalism is that it was a result of the economic backwardness of the countries in which it emerged, particularly France. Newer studies have questioned this account. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, changes in labor processes contributed to the radicalization of workers and thereby to
18040-462: The German Empire identified not as Germans but in regional terms as Prussians or Bavarians and the like. Multilingual countries like Germany and Spain also could not claim a common language as a defining characteristic of the nation nor did members of the same nation share the same values or experiences, syndicalists in Spain and Germany argued. Syndicalists also argued against the notion that the war
18245-558: The Great Labour Unrest, including the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike where he chaired the strike committee. In Ireland, Larkin and the ITGWU led 20,000 during the 1913 Dublin lockout . After the ITGWU attempted to unionize the Dublin United Tramway Company and tram workers went on strike, the city's employers threatened to fire any workers who did not sign a pledge to not support the ITGWU, thereby turning
18450-447: The IWW maintained its anti-war stance, while its bitter rival, the AFL, supported the war; however, it did not launch an anti-war campaign, as it feared the government would crush it if it did, and wanted to focus on its economic struggles. The IWW's practical opposition to the war was limited, 95% of eligible IWW members registered for the draft, and most of those drafted served. Syndicalists in
18655-502: The IWW, defined the union's purpose at the First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World as "the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism". Syndicalists held that society was divided into two great classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie. Their interests being irreconcilable, they must be in a constant state of class struggle . Tom Mann , a British syndicalist, declared that "the object of
18860-758: The International Confederation of Labour (ICL–CIT), which was formed in 2018. The word syndicalism has French origins. In French, a syndicat is a trade union, usually a local union. A syndicate is a self organizing group working towards a shared interest. The corresponding words in Spanish and Portuguese, sindicato , and Italian, sindacato , are similar. By extension, the French syndicalisme refers to trade unionism in general. The concept of syndicalisme révolutionnaire or revolutionary syndicalism emerged in French socialist journals in 1903, and
19065-448: The Left is also divided over how to effectively and equitably reduce carbon emissions as the center-left often advocates a reliance on market measures such as emissions trading and a carbon tax while those further to the left support direct government regulation and intervention in the form of a Green New Deal , either alongside or instead of market mechanisms. The question of nationality , imperialism and nationalism has been
19270-515: The Netherlands and Sweden, both neutral countries, criticized the truce socialists entered with their governments in order to shore up national defense. The Dutch NAS disowned Cornelissen, one of its founders, for his support for the war. Syndicalists from Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, and Cuba met at an anti-war congress in El Ferrol , Spain, in April 1915. Although
19475-622: The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and France, while Belgian syndicalists were in the process of forming one. There were also groups advocating syndicalism in Russia, Japan, the United States, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, and Great Britain. Outside of North America, the IWW also had organizations in Australia, New Zealand, where it was part of the Federation of Labour (FOL), Great Britain even though its membership had imploded by 1913, and South Africa. In Ireland, syndicalism took
19680-458: The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Discussions were contentious and did not lead to the founding of a syndicalist international. Delegates did agree on a declaration of principles describing syndicalism's core tenets. They also decided to launch an International Syndicalist Information Bureau and to hold another congress in Amsterdam. This congress did not take place due to
19885-486: The Netherlands, and in 1904 in Italy, in addition to significant work stoppages during the Russian Revolution of 1905 . Darlington cites the significance of the conscious intervention by syndicalist militants. The industrial unrest of the period created conditions which made workers receptive to syndicalist leaders' agitation. They spread their ideas through pamphlets and newspapers and had considerable influence in
20090-485: The New Left. Unlike the earlier leftist focus on labour union activism and a proletarian revolution, the New Left instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism . The New Left in the United States is associated with the hippie movement , mass protest movements on school campuses and a broadening of focus from protesting class -based oppression to include issues such as gender , race and sexual orientation . The British New Left
20295-411: The OBU advocated values of "radical manhood". Francis Shor argues that the "IWW promotion of sabotage represents a kind of masculine posturing which directly challenged the individualizing techniques of power mobilized by industrial capitalism". Thus, "the IWW's masculine identity incorporated features of working-class solidarity and protest ... through 'virile' syndicalism." For example, while defending
20500-522: The Russian Revolution. Although they were still coming to grips with the evolving Bolshevik ideology and despite traditional anarchist suspicions of Marxism, they saw in Russia a revolution that had taken place against parliamentary politics and under the influence of workers' councils. At this point, they also had only limited knowledge of the reality in Russia. Augustin Souchy , a German anarcho-syndicalist, hailed it "the great passion that swept us all along. In
20705-598: The Spanish CNT had visited France. Alceste de Ambris and Armando Borghi [ it ] , both leaders in Italy's USI, were in Paris for a few months from 1910 to 1911. French influence also spread through publications. Pouget's pamphlets could be read in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, and Swedish translations. Journals and newspapers in a number of countries advocated syndicalism. For example, L'Action directe ,
20910-814: The United States, the IWW was involved in at least 150 strikes including the Goldfield, Nevada, labor troubles of 1906–1907 by miners' strikes, the Pressed Steel Car strike of 1909 , the 1912 Lawrence textile strike , the Brotherhood of Timber Workers ' strikes in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1912–1913, and the 1913 Paterson silk strike . The most prominent was the struggle in Lawrence. Wobblie leaders brought together 23,000 mostly immigrant workers, many of whom did not speak English. They arranged for workers' children to be sent to live with sympathetic families outside of Lawrence for
21115-542: The United States, where social progressives played an important role in the abolition of slavery , the enshrinement of women's suffrage in the United States Constitution , and the protection of civil rights , LGBTQ rights , women's rights and multiculturalism . Progressives have both advocated for alcohol prohibition legislation and worked towards its repeal in the mid to late 1920s and early 1930s. Current positions associated with social progressivism in
21320-438: The achievement of immediate improvements, such as the reduction of working hours, the increase of wages, etc. But this task is only one aspect of the work of syndicalism; it prepares for complete emancipation, which can be realised only by expropriating the capitalist class." For unions to fulfill this role, it was necessary to prevent bureaucrats – "whose sole purpose in life seems to be apologising for and defending
21525-594: The anarcho-syndicalist theorist Rudolf Rocker , there were syndicalist tendencies in Britain's labor movement as early as the 1830s. Syndicalism's direct roots were in Pierre Joseph Proudhon 's mutualism , a form of socialism that focused on cooperation among the community of man. He coined capitalist to describe the political class granting itself monopolies on the use of capital, and wanted workers to oppose this state control through peaceful means, only using force defensively. Proudhon's ideas were popular in
21730-453: The anti- capital punishment movement and Liberation Theology . Early utopian socialist thinkers such as Robert Owen , Charles Fourier and the Comte de Saint-Simon based their theories of socialism upon Christian principles. Other common leftist concerns such as pacifism , social justice , racial equality , human rights and the rejection of capitalism and excessive wealth can be found in
21935-657: The attacks on the IWW; by the end of 1919, the IWW was practically powerless. 1919 also saw the Canadian labour revolt , leading to the formation of One Big Union, which was only partly industrial unionist. The Bolsheviks suppressed syndicalism in Russia but courted syndicalists abroad as part of their international strategy. In March 1919, the 1st Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow. The Bolsheviks acknowledged syndicalism's opposition to socialist reformism and saw them as part of
22140-501: The broader sense, originated with the IWW in the United States and then caught on in other countries. In a number of countries, certain syndicalist practices and ideas predate the coining of the term in France or the founding of the IWW. In Bert Altena's view, a number of movements in Europe can be called syndicalist, even before 1900. According to the English social historian E. P. Thompson and
22345-438: The capitalist system of exploitation", according to Larkin – from inhibiting workers' militant zeal. Battling bureaucracy and reformism within the labor movement was a major theme for syndicalists. One expression of this was many syndicalists' rejection of collective bargaining agreements , which were thought to force labor peace upon workers and break their solidarity. The Wobblie Vincent St. John declared: "There
22550-625: The case in Italy and much of the Anglophone world, including Ireland where anarchists had no significant influence on syndicalism. The extent to which syndicalist doctrine was a product of anarchism is debated. The anarchist Iain McKay argues that syndicalism is but a new name for ideas and tactics developed by Bakunin and the anarchist wing of the First International, while it is wholly inconsistent with positions Marx and Engels took. According to him,
22755-527: The congress was poorly planned and prohibited by the Spanish authorities, delegates managed to discuss resistance to the war and extending international cooperation between syndicalist groups. Argentine, Brazilian, Spanish, and Portuguese delegates later met in October in Rio de Janeiro to continue discussions and resolved to deepen cooperation between South American syndicalists. While syndicalists were only able to put up
22960-498: The country. After the police occupied the offices of an agricultural union, syndicalists called for a general strike. During the strike, Lisbon was controlled by workers and there were armed uprisings in several other cities. In 1912, the strike wave ebbed off. Italian syndicalists successfully organized agricultural workers in the Po Valley by uniting different parts of agricultural working class. They were most successful in areas where
23165-532: The course of events in Russia. In France, the CGT's radical minority that had opposed the war enthusiastically supported Bolshevism. They formed the Revolutionary Syndicalist Committees and attempted to push the CGT as a whole to support the Comintern. The General Executive Board of the IWW decided join the Comintern, although this decision was never confirmed by a convention. German and Swedish syndicalists were more critical of Bolshevism from
23370-877: The developing world such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, the Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa and the Naxalites in India have argued that the First World and the Second World Left takes a racist and paternalistic attitude towards liberation movements in the Third World. The original French Left was firmly anti-clerical , strongly opposing the influence of
23575-631: The dispute into a city-wide conflict in late September. Workers' resistance crumbled in January 1914. There was no international syndicalist organization prior to World War I. In 1907, CGT activists presented the Charter of Amiens and syndicalism to an international audience a higher form of anarchism at the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907. Discussions at the Congress led to
23780-484: The division between First World and Second World developed countries and Third World developing countries as being of high political importance. This tendency supports decolonization and national liberation movements against imperialism by capitalists. Third-Worldism is closely connected with African socialism , Latin American socialism , Maoism , pan-Africanism and pan-Arabism . Several left-wing groups in
23985-565: The duration of the strike so their parents could focus on the struggle. Unlike most IWW-led strikes, the struggle was successful. In Mexico, syndicalism first emerged in 1906 during the violent Cananea strike by miners and the even more violent Río Blanco strike by textile workers. In 1912, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, anarchists formed the syndicalist union House of the World Worker ( Casa del Obrero Mundial ). It led
24190-690: The dynamics of the capitalist system, and aimed to overthrow that system. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, workers' radicalization manifested itself in their rejection of the dominant strategies in the labor movement, which was led by reformist trade unions and socialist parties. Vladimir Lenin posited that "revolutionary syndicalism in many countries was a direct and inevitable result of opportunism, reformism and parliamentary cretinism." A feeling that ideological disputes were draining workers' power led Dutch, French, and American syndicalist organizations to declare themselves independent of any political groups. In countries like Italy, Spain, and Ireland, which
24395-422: The economy is independent of his advocacy of revolutionary socialism or his belief in the inevitability of a proletarian revolution . Marxian economics do not exclusively rely on Marx and draw from a range of Marxist and non-Marxist sources. The dictatorship of the proletariat and workers' state are terms used by some Marxists, particularly Leninists and Marxist–Leninists , to describe what they see as
24600-672: The economy, and syndicalization of industry. The Russian Civil War against the White Army split anarchists. The syndicalists were criticized harshly because most supported the Bolshevik regime in the war even as they excoriated Bolshevik policy. They reasoned that a White victory would be worse and that the Whites had to be defeated before a third revolution could topple the Bolsheviks. Despite this, syndicalists were harassed and repeatedly arrested by
24805-554: The economy, preferring social ownership and local control in which a nation of decentralized regions is united in a confederation . The global justice movement , also known as the anti-globalisation movement and the alter-globalisation movement, protests against corporate economic globalisation due to its negative consequences for the poor, workers, the environment, and small businesses. Leftists generally believe in innovation in various technological and philosophical fields and disciplines to help causes they support. One of
25010-404: The economy. Leftists continue to criticize the perceived exploitative nature of globalization , the " race to the bottom " and unjust lay-offs and exploitation of workers. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the belief that the government (ruling in accordance with the interests of the people) ought to be directly involved in the day-to-day workings of an economy declined in popularity amongst
25215-401: The entire class, and could therefore not be divided on political grounds. The French syndicalist Pouget explained: "The CGT embraces – outside of all the schools of politics – all workers cognisant of the struggle to be waged for the elimination of wage-slavery and the employer class." In practice, this neutrality was more ambiguous. For example, the CGT worked with
25420-495: The established American Federation of Labor (AFL). In Ireland, the ITGWU broke away from a more moderate, and British-based, union. In Italy and Spain , syndicalists initially worked within the established union confederations before breaking away and forming USI and the CNT respectively. In Norway, there were both the Norwegian Trade Union Opposition ( Norske Fagopposition , NFO), syndicalists working within
25625-446: The events. The Haymarket Affair , as these events became known, led anarchists and labor organizers, including syndicalists, in both the United States and Europe to re-evaluate the revolutionary meaning of the general strike. According to Émile Pouget , a French anarchist and CGT leader, from "the United States, the idea of the general strike – fertilized by the blood of anarchists hanged in Chicago ... –
25830-452: The fact that many Marxists embraced syndicalism merely indicates that they abandoned Marx's views and converted to Bakunin's. Altena too views syndicalism as part of the broader anarchist movement but concedes there was a tension between this and the fact that it was also a labor movement. He also sees Marxist ideas reflected in the movement, as leading syndicalists, such as Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis and Christiaan Cornelissen , and much of
26035-646: The factories and order to the economy in December by putting the economy under state control. At the First All Russian Congress of Trade Unions in January, the syndicalists, who had paid little attention to the unions, only had 6 delegates, while the Bolsheviks had 273. No longer depending on their help in toppling the provisional government, the Bolsheviks were now in a position to ignore the syndicalists' opposition and outvoted them at this congress. They opted to disempower local committees by subordinating them to
26240-572: The factory committees as the true form of syndicalist organization, not unions. Because they were better organized, the Bolsheviks were able to gain more traction in the committees, with six times as many delegates in a typical factory. Despite the goals they had in common, syndicalists became anxious about the Bolsheviks' growing influence, especially after they won majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets in September. The Petrograd Soviet established
26445-409: The first decade of Soviet rule, before Joseph Stalin attacked ecologists and the science of ecology, purged environmentalists and promoted the pseudoscience of Trofim Lysenko during his rule up until his death in 1953. Similarly, Mao Zedong rejected environmentalism and believed that based on the laws of historical materialism, all of nature must be put into the service of revolution. From
26650-485: The foremost left-wing advocates was Thomas Paine, one of the first individuals since left and right became political terms to describe the collective human ownership of the world which he speaks of in Agrarian Justice. As such, most of left-wing thought and literature regarding environmentalism stems from this duty of ownership and the aforementioned form of cooperative ownership means that humanity must take care of
26855-459: The form of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), which espoused a mix of industrial unionism and socialist Irish republicanism , and was labeled Larkinism. There was a significant uptick in workers' radicalism in most developed capitalist states from 1911 to 1922, although it relented during World War I. Strikes increased in frequency, numbers of workers involved, and duration. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, syndicalism
27060-408: The formation of militant organizations, political repression , conspiracism , xenophobia , and nationalism . In China, the term Chinese New Left denotes those who oppose the economic reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 1990s, favour instead the restoration of Maoist policies and the immediate transition to a socialist economy. In the Western world , the term New Left
27265-656: The formation of the international syndicalist journal Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste . The CGT was affiliated with the International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centers (ISNTUC), which brought together reformist socialist unions. Both the Dutch NAS and the British ISEL attempted to remedy the lack of a syndicalist counterpart to ISNTUC in 1913, simultaneously publishing calls for an international syndicalist congress in 1913. The CGT rejected
27470-571: The former could not be overthrown by changes to the latter. Nevertheless, a number of leading syndicalist figures worked in political parties and some ran for elected office. Larkin was active in the Labour Party , while Haywood was part of the Socialist Party of America . Both of them saw the economic sphere as the primary arena for revolutionary struggle, and involvement in politics could at best be an echo of industrial struggle. They were skeptical of parliamentary politics. According to Thomas Hagerty ,
27675-601: The founding of the LGBTQ rights movement in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Contemporary leftist activists and socialist countries such as Cuba are actively supportive of LGBTQ+ people and are involved in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. In politics, the term Left derives from the French Revolution as the political groups opposed to the royal veto privilege ( Montagnard and Jacobin deputies from
27880-663: The goal of uniting all French workers. In 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World were formed in the United States by the Western Federation of Miners , the American Labor Union , and a broad coalition of socialists, anarchists, and labor unionists. Its base was mostly in the Western United States, where labor conflicts were most violent and workers therefore radicalized. Although the Wobblies insisted their union
28085-422: The international proletariat in order to further increase the power of the working class. Proletarian internationalism saw itself as a deterrent against war and international conflicts, because people with a common interest are less likely to take up arms against one another, instead focusing on fighting the bourgeoisie as the ruling class . According to Marxist theory, the antonym of proletarian internationalism
28290-521: The invitation. Its leaders feared that leaving ISNTUC, which it intended to revolutionize from within, would split the CGT and harm working-class unity. The IWW also did not participate, as it considered itself an international in its own right. The First International Syndicalist Congress was held in London from 27 September to 2 October. It was attended by 38 delegates from 65 organizations in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy,
28495-497: The libertarian feminist organization Mujeres Libres during the Spanish Civil War. According to the historian Sharif Gemie, the male orientation of parts of the syndicalist labor movement reflected the ideas of the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , who defended patriarchy because women, of their own accord, are "chained to nature". Syndicalists were involved in a number of strikes, labor disputes, and other struggles. In
28700-485: The lines of the IWW with some support from the American organization but also with links to the left wing of the Communist Party of Germany . In December 1919, the Free Workers' Union of Germany (Syndicalists) ( Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (Syndikalisten) , FAUD) was formed, claiming to represent over 110,000 workers, more than eighteen times the FVdG's pre-war membership. Most of the new organization came from
28905-818: The mainstream Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions ( Landsorganisasjonen i Norge in Norwegian, LO), and the Norwegian Syndicalist Federation ( Norsk Syndikalistik Federation in Norwegian, NSF), an independent syndicalist organization set up by the Swedish SAC. There was a similar conflict between the Industrial Syndicalist Education League and the Industrial Workers of Great Britain . By 1914, there were syndicalist national labor confederations in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico,
29110-556: The most consistently revolutionary faction on the left as socialists sought to rein in workers and prevent unrest. The Italian syndicalist movement had split during the war, as the syndicalist supporters of Italian intervention left USI. The interventionists, led by Alceste de Ambris and Edmondo Rossoni, formed the Italian Union of Labor [ it ] ( Unione Italiana del Lavoro , UIL) in 1918. The UIL's national syndicalism emphasized workers' love of labor, self-sacrifice, and
29315-560: The nation rather than anti-capitalist class struggle. Both USI and the UIL grew significantly during the biennio rosso . The first factory occupation of the biennio was carried out by the UIL at a steel plant in Dalmine in February 1919, before the military put an end to it. In July, a strike movement spread through Italy, culminating in a general strike on 20 July. While USI supported it and
29520-404: The opposite. Socialists agreed to put aside class conflict and vote for war credits . German socialists argued that war was necessary to defend against what they termed Russia's "barbaric Tsarism ", while their French counterparts pointed to the need to defend against Prussian militarism and the German "instinct of domination and of discipline". This collaboration between the socialist movement and
29725-468: The outbreak of World War I. Syndicalists had long opposed interventionism. Haywood held that "it is better to be a traitor to your country than to your class". French syndicalists viewed the French Army as the primary defender of the capitalist order. In 1901, the CGT published a manual for soldiers encouraging desertion. In 1911, British syndicalists distributed an "Open Letter to British Soldiers" imploring them not to shoot on striking workers but to join
29930-406: The owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations". Following the Russian Revolution, environmental scientists such as revolutionary Alexander Bogdanov and the Proletkult organisation made efforts to incorporate environmentalism into Bolshevism and "integrate production with natural laws and limits" in
30135-427: The placement along the political spectrum in a given time and place. At the end of the 18th century, upon the founding of the first liberal democracies , the term Left was used to describe liberalism in the United States and republicanism in France, supporting a lesser degree of hierarchical decision-making than the right-wing politics of the traditional conservatives and monarchists . In modern politics,
30340-407: The point of production where they work" rather than at the ballot box. Of the 230 delegates present at the founding of Canada's One Big Union, a mere 3 were women. When a female radical criticized the masculinist atmosphere at the meeting, she was rebuffed by men who insisted that labor only concern itself with class rather than gender issues. The historian Todd McCallum concludes that syndicalists in
30545-422: The police, particularly the Cheka , from 1919 on. Their demands had some sway with workers and dissidents within the Bolshevik party and the Bolshevik leadership viewed them as the most dangerous part of the libertarian movement. After the Russian Civil War ended, workers and sailors, including both anarchists and Bolsheviks, rose up in what came to be known as the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921, with Kronstadt being
30750-469: The proclamation of a new government, fearing a dictatorship of the proletariat , even more so after the Bolsheviks created the central Soviet of People's Commissars composed only of members of their party. They called for decentralization of power but agreed with Lenin's labor program, which endorsed workers' control in all enterprises of a certain minimum size. The introduction of workers' control led to economic chaos. Lenin turned to restoring discipline in
30955-572: The rank-and-file and instill in workers the expectation that the union rather than they would wage the class struggle. Syndicalists advocated direct action , including working to rule , passive resistance, sabotage, and strikes, particularly the general strike, as tactics in the class struggle, as opposed to indirect action such as electoral politics. The IWW engaged in around 30 mostly successful civil disobedience campaigns they deemed free speech fights . Wobblies would defy laws restricting public speeches, in order to clog up prisons and court systems as
31160-549: The reformist union Federterra had been thwarted by employers. Syndicalists led large strikes by farm workers in Parma and Ferrara in 1907–1908; these strikes failed as a result of employers' strikebreaking tactics and infighting among workers. In 1911–1913, syndicalists played an important role in a large strike wave in Italy's industrial centers. The syndicalist union confederation USI was formed in 1912 by veterans of both strike movements. British Wobblies were involved in two major strikes in Scotland, one at Argyll Motor Works and
31365-503: The revolutionary wing of the labor movement. No syndicalists attended the founding convention, mainly because the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War , which included a blockade of Russia by the Allied powers of World War I , made travel to Moscow near impossible. After long discussions, the CNT opted to join the Comintern , although it classified its adherence as provisional as a concession to detractors of Bolshevism. USI also decided to join; some like Borghi had reservations about
31570-588: The rise of syndicalism. This rise took place during the Second Industrial Revolution . Two groups of workers were most attracted to syndicalism: casual or seasonal laborers who frequently changed jobs, and workers whose occupations were becoming obsolete as a result of technological advances. The first group included landless agricultural workers, construction workers, and dockers, all of whom were disproportionately represented in several countries' syndicalist movements. Because they frequently changed jobs, such workers did not have close relationships with their employers and
31775-630: The risk of losing one's job as a result of a strike was reduced. Moreover, because of the time constraints of their jobs they were forced to act immediately in order to achieve anything and could not plan for the long term by building up strike funds or powerful labor organizations or by engaging in mediation. Their working conditions gave them an inclination to engage in direct confrontation with employers and apply direct action. The second group included miners, railway employees, and certain factory workers. Their occupations were deskilled by technological and organizational changes. These changes made workers from
31980-469: The rule of workers' organizations. In such a society, individuals would be liberated in the economic sphere but also in their private and social lives. Syndicalist policies on gender issues were mixed. The CNT did not admit women as members until 1918. The CGT dismissed feminism as a bourgeois movement. Syndicalists were mostly indifferent to the question of women's suffrage . Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , an IWW organizer, insisted that women "find their power at
32185-409: The same distance from the left as it did under Blair. In contrast, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour Party leader was viewed by scholars and political commentators as Labour turning back toward its more classical socialist roots, rejecting neoliberalism and the Third Way whilst supporting a democratic socialist society and an end to austerity measures. Syndicalism Syndicalism
32390-532: The same way socialism was by Marxism . Émile Pouget , a CGT leader, maintained: "What sets syndicalism apart from the various schools of socialism – and makes it superior – is its doctrinal sobriety. Inside the unions, there is little philosophising. They do better than that: they act!" Similarly, Andreu Nin of the Spanish CNT proclaimed in 1919: "I am a fanatic of action, of revolution. I believe in actions more than in remote ideologies and abstract questions." Although workers' education
32595-437: The second at a Singer Corporation 's sewing machine factory in Clydebank . In 1906, several industrial unionists began to spread their ideas and organize workers at Singer's. The organized the 1911 strike at Singer after a woman was fired for not working hard enough. The strike was cleverly defeated by management and most activists lost their jobs. The ISEL leader Tom Mann was also at the center of several labor disputes during
32800-554: The second group similar in some respects to the first group. They did not entirely result from the introduction of new technology but were also caused by changes in management methods. This included increased supervision of workers, piecework , internal promotions, all designed make workers docile and loyal and to transfer knowledge and control over the process of production from workers to employers. Frustration with this loss of power led to formal and informal resistance by workers. Altena disagrees with this explanation. According to him, it
33005-413: The socialists' neutrality and therefore support the war. Finally, they gave similar arguments as the French, warning of the dangers posed by the "suffocating imperialism of Germany", and felt obliged to follow the CGT's lead. USI's pro-war wing had the support of less than a third of the organization's members and it was forced out in September 1914. Its anarchist wing, led by Borghi, was firmly opposed to
33210-431: The source for a better kind of social revolution . This view has been criticized by several Marxists , especially Trotskyists , who characterized this approach as "substitutionism" which they described as a misguided and non-Marxist belief that other groups in society could "substitute" for and "replace" the revolutionary agency of the working class. Many early feminists and advocates of women's rights were considered
33415-399: The soviets, they were most enthusiastic about the factory committees and workers' councils that had emerged in all industrial centers in the course of strikes and demonstrations in the February Revolution . The committees fought for higher wages and shorter hours but above all for workers' control over production, which both the syndicalists and Bolsheviks supported. The syndicalists viewed
33620-409: The spring of 1917. The start of the war had induced an economic boom in the United States, tightening the labor market and thereby strengthening workers' bargaining position. The IWW profited from this, more than doubling its membership between 1916 and 1917. At the same time, the Wobblies fervently denounced the war and mulled calling an anti-war general strike. Once the United States became a combatant,
33825-475: The state was known as the union sacrée in France, the Burgfrieden in Germany, and godsvrede [ nl ] in the Netherlands. Moreover, a number of anarchists led by Peter Kropotkin , including the influential syndicalist Christiaan Cornelissen, issued the Manifesto of the Sixteen , supporting the Allied cause in the war. Despite this, most syndicalists remained true to their internationalist and anti-militarist principles by opposing
34030-408: The state, central syndicalist themes. According to Lucien van der Walt , the Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA , which was formed in 1870, was in fact syndicalist. Kenyon Zimmer sees a "proto-syndicalism" in the influence the anarchist -led International Working People's Association (IWPA) and Central Labor Union , which originated in the American section of the First International, had in
34235-462: The subject. Mikhail Bakunin thought the lumpenproletariat was a revolutionary class, while Mao Zedong believed that it would be rural peasants, not urban workers, who would bring about the proletarian revolution . Left-libertarians , anarchists and libertarian socialists believe in a decentralized economy run by trade unions , workers' councils , cooperatives , municipalities and communes, opposing both state and private control of
34440-425: The syndicalist conception, unions played a dual role. They were organs of struggle within capitalism for better working conditions, and they were also to play a key role in the revolution to overthrow capitalism. Victor Griffuelhes expressed this at the CGT's 1906 congress in the following manner: "In its day-to-day demands, syndicalism seeks the co-ordination of workers' efforts, the increase of workers' well-being by
34645-403: The syndicalists' ability to theorize their struggles and their experience with direct action methods. Starting in the second half of 1919, workers disappointed by the socialist party's and unions' support for the war and previously non-unionized unskilled workers who were radicalized during the war flocked to the FVdG. The revolution also saw the introduction to Germany of industrial unionism along
34850-489: The term Left typically applies to ideologies and movements to the left of classical liberalism , supporting some degree of democracy in the economic sphere . Today, ideologies such as social liberalism and social democracy are considered to be centre-left , while the Left is typically reserved for movements more critical of capitalism , including the labour movement , socialism , anarchism , communism , Marxism and syndicalism , each of which rose to prominence in
35055-440: The theory of socialism in one country. European social democrats strongly support Europeanism and supranational integration within the European Union , although there is a minority of nationalists and Eurosceptics on the left. Several scholars have linked this form of left-wing nationalism to the pressure generated by economic integration with other countries, often encouraged by neoliberal free trade agreements. This view
35260-460: The trade unions, which in turn became organs of the state. The Bolsheviks argued that workers' control did not mean that workers controlled factories at the local level and that this control had to be centralized and put under a broader economic plan. The syndicalists criticized the Bolshevik regime bitterly, characterizing it as state capitalist . They denounced state control over the factories and agitated for decentralization of power in politics and
35465-471: The traditional institutions of the Ancien Régime. Usage of the term Left became more prominent after the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815, when it was applied to the Independents . The word wing was first appended to Left and Right in the late 19th century, usually with disparaging intent, and left-wing was applied to those who were unorthodox in their religious or political views. Ideologies considered to be left-wing vary greatly depending on
35670-447: The union's philosophy of direct action. Altena argues that, even though evidence of ordinary workers' convictions is scant, it indicates that they were aware of doctrinal differences between various currents in the labor movement and able to defend their own views. He observes that they likely understood syndicalist newspapers and debated political issues. Syndicalism is used by some interchangeably with anarcho-syndicalism . This term
35875-435: The unions is to wage the Class War". According to syndicalist doctrine, this war was aimed not just at gaining concessions such as higher wages or a shorter working day but at the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Syndicalists agreed with Karl Marx 's characterization of the state as the "executive committee of the ruling class". They held that a society's economic order determined its political order and concluded that
36080-468: The very workers dying in the war were denied access to that culture by capitalist conditions. Finally, syndicalists railed against religious justifications for war. Before the war, they had rejected religion as divisive at best; support for the war by both Catholic and Protestant clergy revealed their hypocrisy and disgraced the principles they and Christianity claimed to uphold. As the war progressed, disaffection with worsening living conditions at home and
36285-413: The war and their respective nation's participation in it. The majority of the French CGT and a sizable minority in the Italian USI did not. The CGT had long had a moderate, reformist wing, which gained the upper hand. As a result, according to historians like Darlington or van der Linden and Thorpe, the CGT was no longer a revolutionary syndicalist organization after the start of World War I. It followed
36490-414: The war and was almost completely suppressed by the state during the war, regrouped at a conference in Berlin in December 1918. It was active in the revolutionary events of the following years, particularly in the Ruhr area . It supported spontaneous strikes and championed direct action and sabotage. The FVdG started to be held in high regard for its radicalism by workers, particularly miners, who appreciated
36695-418: The war effort but also refrained from working against it. From the start of the war, even before Italy did so, a minority within USI, led by the most famous Italian syndicalist, Alceste De Ambris , called on the Italian state to take the Allies' side. As part of left-interventionism , the pro-war syndicalists saw Italian participation in the war as the completion of nationhood. They also felt compelled to oppose
36900-434: The war effort. Thanks in part to their fidelity to internationalism, syndicalist organizations profited from this development and expanded as the war drew to an end. Disaffection with the war condensed in the post-World War I revolutions that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917. In February 1917, strikes, riots, and troop mutinies broke out in Petrograd , forcing the Nicholas II to abdicate on 2 March in favor of
37105-438: The war, deeming it incompatible with workers' internationalism and predicting that it would only serve elites and governments. Its opposition was met with government repression, and Borghi and others were interned by the end of the war. Instead, the anti-war faction in the CGT was a small minority. It was led by the likes of Pierre Monatte and Alphonse Merrheim . They would link up with anti-war socialists from around Europe at
37310-549: The war. In 1917, radicals began to dominate the labor movement as a result of the war, the Sidónio Pais dictatorship established that year, and the influence of the Russian Revolution. The 1918 Portugal general strike was called for November but failed, and in 1919 the syndicalist General Confederation of Labour ( Confederação Geral do Trabalho , CGT) was formed as the country's first national union confederation. In Brazil, in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, syndicalists, along with anarchists and socialists, were leaders in
37515-576: The working class's struggle against capital. Syndicalists argued that patriotism was a means of integrating workers into capitalist society by distracting them from their true class interest. In 1908, the CGT's congress invoked the slogan of the First International, proclaiming that the "workers have no fatherland". When World War I broke out in July 1914, socialist parties and trade unions – both in neutral and belligerent countries – supported their respective nations' war efforts or national defense, despite previous pledges to do
37720-466: The works of Thomas Paine , who introduced the concept of asset-based egalitarianism which theorises that social equality is possible by a redistribution of resources. After the Reconstruction era in the aftermath of the American Civil War , the phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement . More recently, left-wing and right-wing have often been used as synonyms for
37925-407: Was a clash of different cultures or that it could be justified as a defense of civilization. They stated that various cultures were not mutually hostile, and the state should not be seen as the embodiment of culture, since culture was the product of the entire population, while the state acted in the interests of just a few. Moreover, they argued that if culture was to be understood as high culture ,
38130-432: Was a distinctly American form of labor organization and not an import of European syndicalism, the IWW was syndicalist in the broader sense of the word. According to Melvyn Dubofsky and most other IWW historians, the IWW's industrial unionism was the specifically American form of syndicalism. Nevertheless, the IWW also had a presence in Canada and Mexico nearly from its inception, as the United States economy and labor force
38335-412: Was a war between democracy and republicanism on the one side and barbaric militarism on the other. Italy did not initially participate in World War I, which was deeply unpopular in the country, when it broke out. The Italian Socialist Party and the reformist Italian General Confederation of Labour opposed intervention in the Great War . Once Italy became a participant, the socialists refused to support
38540-430: Was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to correct the perceived errors of the Old Left . The New Left opposed prevailing authoritarian structures in society which it designated as " The Establishment " and became known as the "Anti-Establishment". The New Left did not seek to recruit industrial workers en masse, but instead concentrated on a social activist approach to organization, convinced that they could be
38745-409: Was convinced by the workers' enthusiasm that revolution could be possible, the UIL and the socialists were opposed. The socialists succeeded in curtailing the general strike and it imploded with a day. The government, unsettled by the radicalism on display, reacted with repression against the far left and concessions to workers and peasants. In Portugal, working class unrest picked up from the start of
38950-402: Was first used in 1907 by socialists criticizing the political neutrality of the CGT, although it was rarely used until the early 1920s when communists used it disparagingly. Only from 1922 was it used by self-avowed anarcho-syndicalists. Although syndicalism has traditionally been seen as a current within anarchism, it was dominated in some countries by Marxists rather than anarchists. This was
39155-410: Was formed as a rival to the bourses but was at first much weaker. From the start, it advocated the general strike and aimed to unite all workers. Pouget, who was active in the CGT, supported the use of sabotage and direct action. In 1902, the bourses merged into the CGT. In 1906, the federation adopted the Charter of Amiens , which reaffirmed the CGT's independence from party politics and fixed
39360-443: Was formed by Italian and Spanish immigrants in 1901. Many IWW leaders were European immigrants, including Edmondo Rossoni who moved between the United States and Italy and was active in both the IWW and USI. International work processes also contributed to the diffusion of syndicalism. For example, sailors helped establish IWW presences in port cities around the world. Syndicalists formed different kinds of organizations. Some like
39565-406: Was formed in 1922, is an international syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. At its peak, it represented millions of workers and competed directly for the hearts and minds of the working class with social democratic unions and parties. A number of syndicalist organizations were and still are to this day linked in the IWA–AIT; some of its member organizations left for
39770-399: Was further encouraged by employers' hostility to workers' actions. The economist Ernesto Screpanti hypothesized that strike waves like the one from 1911 to 1922 generally occur during the upper turning-points of the periodic global long cycles of boom and bust known as Kondratieff waves . He argued that such waves of proletarian insurgency were global in reach, saw workers breaking free of
39975-464: Was important at least to committed activists, syndicalists distrusted bourgeois intellectuals, wanting to maintain workers' control over the movement. Syndicalist thinking was elaborated in pamphlets, leaflets, speeches, and articles and in the movement's own newspapers. These writings consisted mainly in calls to action and discussions of tactics in class struggle. The philosopher Georges Sorel 's Reflections on Violence introduced syndicalist ideas to
40180-399: Was imported to France". In the 1890s, French anarchists, conceding that individual action such as assassinations had failed, turned their focus to the labor movement. They were able to gain influence, particularly in the bourses du travail , which served as labor exchanges , meeting places for unions, and trades councils and organized in a national federation in 1893. In 1895, the CGT
40385-403: Was in this period that the word wing was appended to both Left and Right. The International Workingmen's Association (1864–1876), sometimes called the First International, brought together delegates from many different countries, with many different views about how to reach a classless and stateless society. Following a split between supporters of Marx and Mikhail Bakunin , anarchists formed
40590-410: Was intertwined with those countries. French syndicalism and American industrial unionism influenced the rise of syndicalism elsewhere. Syndicalist movements and organizations in a number of countries were established by activists who had spent time in France. Ervin Szabó visited Paris in 1904 and then established a Syndicalist Propaganda Group in his native Hungary in 1910. Several of the founders of
40795-423: Was only one way this radicalization expressed itself. In the United Kingdom, the period from 1910 to 1914 became known as the Great Labour Unrest . While many historians see syndicalism as a consequence of this unrest, Elie Halévy and the politician Lord Robert Cecil argue it was its cause. Employers in France likewise blamed an upsurge in workers' militancy in the same period on syndicalist leaders. Syndicalism
41000-417: Was partly accidental, and leaders were unable to convert workers to syndicalist ideas. Frederick Ridley, a political scientist, is more equivocal. According to him, leaders were very influential in the drafting of syndicalist ideas. Syndicalism was more than a mere tool of a few leaders, and was a genuine product of the French labor movement. Darlington adds that most members in the Irish ITGWU were won over by
41205-410: Was published. This idea was opposed by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, who declared the need for an international " permanent revolution " and condemned Stalin for betraying the goals and ideals of the socialist revolution. Various Fourth Internationalist groups around the world who describe themselves as Trotskyist see themselves as standing in this tradition while Maoist China formally supported
41410-403: Was quickly quelled by the British army and Connolly was executed. In Germany, the small Free Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG) opposed the socialists' Burgfrieden and Germany's involvement in the war, challenging the claim that the country was waging a defensive war. Its journals were suppressed and a number of its members were arrested. The United States did not enter the war until
41615-426: Was sometimes opposed to imperialism . In the 1880s, there was a debate between leftists such as the Radical Georges Clemenceau , the Socialist Jean Jaurès and the nationalist Maurice Barrès , who argued that colonialism diverted France from liberating the "blue line of the Vosges ", in reference to Alsace-Lorraine; and the " colonial lobby " such as Jules Ferry of the Moderate Republicans , Léon Gambetta of
41820-422: Was still under British rule, parliamentary politics were not seen as a serious means for workers to express their grievances. Most workers were disenfranchised, yet even in France or Britain, where most male workers had the right to vote, many workers did not trust party politics. The enormous numerical growth of well-organized socialist parties, such as in Germany and Italy, did not correlate with any real advance in
42025-523: Was workers with significant autonomy in their jobs and pride in their skills who were most attracted to syndicalism. Moreover, he argues that explanations based on workers' occupations cannot explain why only a minority of workers in those jobs became syndicalists or why in some professions workers in different locations had vastly different patterns of organization. The small size of many syndicalist unions also makes observations about which workers joined statistically irrelevant. Syndicalism came to be seen as
#398601