Malatesta on Syndicalism
The following scan came [without
permission] from the Freedom Press publication 'The anarchist
revolution: Polemical articles 1924 -1931: Errico Malatesta'. Some
paragraph breaks have been added to improve readability]
Syndicalism and Anarchism
The relationship between the labour movement and the progressive
parties is an old and worn theme. But it is an ever topical one, and
so it will remain while there are, on one hand, a mass of people
plagued by urgent needs and driven by aspirations - at times
passionate but always vague and indeterminate - to a better life, and
on the other individuals and parties who have a specific view of the
future and of the means to attain it, but whose plans and hopes are
doomed to remain utopias ever out of reach unless they can win over
the masses. And the subject is all the more important now that, after
the catastrophes of war and of the post-war period, all are
preparing, if only mentally, for a resumption of the activity which
must follow upon the fall of the tyrannies that still rant and rage
[across Europe] but are beginning to tremble. For this reason I
shall try to clarify what, in my view, should be the anarchists'
attitude to labour organisations.
Today, I believe, there is no-one, or almost no-one amongst us
who would deny the usefulness of and the need for the labour movement
as a mass means of material and moral advancement, as a fertile
ground for propaganda and as an indispensable force for the social
transformation that is our goal. There is no longer anyone who does
not understand what the workers' organisation means, to us anarchists
more than to anyone, believing as we do that the new social
organisation must not and cannot be imposed by a new government by
force but must result from the free cooperation of all. Moreover, the
labour movement is now an important and universal institution. To
oppose it would be to become the oppressors' accomplices; to ignore
it would be to put us out of reach of people's everyday lives and
condemn us to perpetual powerlessness. Yet, while everyone, or
almost everyone, is in agreement on the usefulness and the need for
the anarchists to take an active part in the labour movement and to
be its supporters and promoters, we often disagree among ourselves on
the methods, conditions and limitations of such involvement .
Many comrades would like the labour movement and anarchist
movement to be one and the same thing and, where they are able for
instance, in Spain and Argentina, and even to a certain extent in
Italy, France, Germany, etc. - try to confer on the workers'
organisations a clearly anarchist programme. These comrades are known
as 'anarcho-syndicalists', or, if they get mixed up with others who
really are not anarchists, call themselves 'revolutionary
syndicalists'. There needs to be some explanation of the meaning of
'syndicalism' If it is a question of what one wants from the future,
if, that is, by syndicalism is meant the form of social organisation
that should replace capitalism and state organisation, then either it
is the same thing as anarchy and is therefore a word that serves only
to confuse or it is something different from anarchy and cannot
therefore be accepted by anarchists. In fact, among the ideas and the
proposals on the future which some syndicalists have put forward,
there are some that are genuinely anarchist. But there are others
which, under other names and other forms, reproduce the authoritarian
structure which underlies the cause of the ills about which we are
now protesting, and which, therefore, have nothing to do with anarchy
But it is not syndicalism as a social system which I mean to deal
with, because it is not this which can determine the current actions
of the anarchists with regard to the labour movement.
I am dealing here with the labour movement under a capitalist and
state regime and the name syndicalism includes all the workers'
organisations, all the various unions set up to resist the oppression
of the bosses and to lessen or altogether wipe out the exploitation
of human labour by the owners of the raw materials and means of
production. Now I say that these organisations cannot be anarchist
and that it does no good to claim that they are, because if they were
they would be failing in their purpose and would not serve the ends
that those anarchists who are involved in them propose. A Union is
set up to defend the day to day interests of the workers and to
improve their conditions as much as possible before they can be in
any position to make the revolution and by it change today's
wage-earners into free workers, freely associating for the benefit of
all
For a union to serve its own ends and at the same time act as a
means of education and ground for propaganda aimed at radical social
change, it needs to gather together all workers - or at least those
workers who look to an improvement of their conditions - and to be
able to put up some resistance to the bosses. Can it possibly wait
for all the workers to become anarchists before inviting them to
organise themselves and before admitting them into the organisation,
thereby reversing the natural order of propaganda and psychological
development and forming the resistance organisation when there is no
longer any need, since the masses would already be capable of making
the revolution? In such a case the union would be a duplicate of the
anarchist grouping and would be powerless either to obtain
improvements or to make revolution. Or would it content itself with
committing the anarchist programme to paper and with formal,
unthought-out support, and bringing together people who, sheeplike,
follow the organisers, only then to scatter and pass over to the
enemy on the first occasion they are called upon to show themselves
to be serious anarchists?
Syndicalism (by which I mean the practical variety and not the
theoretical sort, which everyone tailors to their own shape) is by
nature reformist. All that can be expected of it is that the reforms
it fights for and achieves are of a kind and obtained in such a way
that they serve revolutionary education and propaganda and leave the
way open for the making of ever greater demands. Any fusion or
confusion between the anarchist and revolutionary movement and the
syndicalist movement ends either by rendering the union helpless as
regards its specific aims or with toning down, falsifying and
extinguishing the anarchist spirit. A union can spring up with a
socialist, revolutionary or anarchist programme and it is, indeed,
with programmes of this sort that the various workers' programmes
originate. But it is while they are weak and impotent that they are
faithful to the programme - while, that is, they remain propaganda
groups set up and run by a few zealous and committed men, rather than
organisations ready for effective action. Later, as they manage to
attract the masses and acquire the strength to claim and impose
improvements, the original programme becomes an empty formula, to
which no-one pays any more attention. Tactics adapt to the needs of
the moment and the enthusiasts of the early days either themselves
adapt or cede their place to 'practical' men concerned with today,
and with no thought for tomorrow.
There are, of course, comrades who, though in the first ranks of
the union movement, remain sincerely and enthusiastically anarchist,
as there are workers' groupings inspired by anarchist ideas. But it
would be too easy a work of criticism to seek out the thousands of
cases in which, in everyday practice, these men and these groupings
contradict anarchist ideas. Hard necessity? I agree. Pure anarchism
cannot be a practical solution while people are forced to deal with
bosses and with authority. The mass of the people cannot be left to
their own devices when they refuse to do so and ask for, demand,
leaders. But why confuse anarchism with what anarchism is not and
take upon ourselves, as anarchists, responsibility for the various
transactions and agreements that need to be made on the very grounds
that the masses are not anarchist, even where they belong to an
organisation that has written an anarchist programme into its
constitution? In my opinion the anarchists should not want the
unions to be anarchist. The anarchists must work among themselves for
anarchist ends, as individuals, groups and federations of groups. In
the same way as there are, or should be, study and discussion groups,
groups for written or spoken propaganda in public, cooperative
groups, groups working within factories and workshops, fields,
barracks, schools, etc., so they should form groups within the
various organisations that wage class war. Naturally the ideal would
be for everyone to be anarchist and for all organisations to work
anarchically. But it is clear that if that were the case, there would
be no need to organise for the struggle against the bosses, because
the bosses would no longer exist.
In present circumstances, given the degree of development of the
mass of the people amongst which they work, the anarchist groups
should not demand that these organisations be anarchist, but try to
draw them as close as possible to anarchist tactics. If the survival
of the organisation and the needs and wishes of the organised make it
really necessary to compromise and enter into muddied negotiations
with authority and the employers, so be it. But let it be the
responsibility of others, not the anarchists, whose mission is to
point to the inadequacy and fragility of all improvements that are
made within a capitalist society and to drive the struggle on toward
ever more radical solutions. The anarchists within the unions should
strive to ensure that they remain open to all workers of whatever
opinion or party on the sole condition that there is solidarity in
the struggle against the bosses. They should oppose the corporatist
spirit and any attempt to monopolise labour or organisation. They
should prevent the Unions from becoming the tools of the politicians
for electoral or other authoritarian ends; they should preach and
practice direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and free
initiative. They should strive to help members learn how to
participate directly in the life of the organisation and to do
without leaders and permanent officials. They must, in short, remain
anarchists, remain always in close touch with anarchists and remember
that the workers' organisation is not the end but just one of the
means, however important, of preparing the way for the achievement of
anarchism.
April-May 1925
The Labour Movement and Anarchism
[Open letter addressed to the
editors of El Productor, an anarchist journal published in Barcelona
- Editor.]
Dear comrades*
In your journal I came across the following sentence: 'If we must
choose between Malatesta, who calls for class unity, and Rocker, who
stands for a labour movement with anarchist aims, we choose our
German comrade.' This is not the first time that our Spanish
language press has attributed to me ideas and intentions I do not
have, and although those who wish to know what I really think can
find it clearly set out in what I myself have written, I have decided
to ask you to publish the following explanation of my position.
Firstly, if things were really as you present them, I too would
opt for Rocker against your 'Malatesta', whose ideas on the labour
movement bear little resemblance to my own. Let's get one thing
clear: a labour movement with anarchist objectives is not the same
thing as an anarchist labour movement. Naturally everyone desires the
former. It is obvious that in their activities anarchists look to the
final triumph of anarchy - the more so when such activities are
carried out within the labour movement, which is of such great
importance in the struggle for human progress and emancipation. But
the latter, a labour movement which is not only involved in
propaganda and the gradual winning over of terrain to anarchism, but
which is already avowedly anarchist, seems to me to be impossible and
would in every way lack the purpose which we wish to give to the
movement.
What matters to me is not 'class unity' but the triumph of
anarchy, which concerns everybody; and in the labour movement I see
only a means of raising the morale of the workers, accustom them to
free initiative and solidarity in a struggle for the good of everyone
and render them capable of imagining, desiring and putting into
practice an anarchist life. Thus, the difference there may be
between us concerns not the ends but the tactics we believe most
appropriate for reaching our common goals.
Some believe anarchists must assemble the anarchist workers, or at
the least those with anarchist sympathies, in separate associations.
But I, on the contrary, would like all wage-earners, whatever their
social, political or religious opinions - or non-opinions - bound
only in solidarity and in struggle against the bosses, to belong to
the same organisations, and I would like the anarchists to remain
indistinguishable from the rest even while seeking to inspire them
with their ideas and example. It could be that specific circumstances
involving personalities, environment or occasion would advise, or
dictate the breaking up of the mass of organised workers into various
different tendencies, according to their social and political views.
But it seems to me in general that there should be a striving towards
unity, which brings workers together in comradeship and accustoms
them to solidarity, gives them greater strength for today's struggles
or prepares them better for the final struggle and the harmony we
shall need in the aftermath of victory.
Clearly, the unity we have to fight for must not mean suppression
of free initiative, forced uniformity or imposed discipline, which
would put a brake on or altogether extinguish the movement of
liberation. But it is only our support for a unified movement that
can safeguard freedom in unity. Other wise unity comes about through
force and to the detriment of freedom. The labour movement is not the
artificial creation of ideologists designed to support and put into
effect a given social and political programme, whether anarchist or
not, and which can therefore, in the attitudes it strikes and the
actions it takes, follow the line laid down by that programme. The
labour movement springs from the desire and urgent need of the
workers to improve their conditions of life or at least to prevent
them getting worse. It must, therefore, live and develop within the
environment as it is now, and necessarily tends to limit its claims
to what seems possible at the time.
It can happen - indeed, it often happens - that the founders of
workers' associations are men of ideas about radical social change
and who profit from the needs felt by the mass of the people to
arouse a desire for change that would suit their own goals. They
gather round them comrades of like mind: activists determined to
fight for the interests of others even at the expense of their own,
and form workers' associations that are in reality political groups,
revolutionary groups, for which questions of wages, hours, internal
workplace regulations, are a side issue and serve rather as a pretext
for attracting the majority to their own ideas and plans. But before
long, as the number of members grows, short-term interests gain the
upper hand, revolutionary aspirations become an obstacle and a
danger, 'pragmatic' men, conservatives, reformists, eager and willing
to enter into any agreement and accommodation arising from the
circumstances of the moment, clash with the idealists and hardliners,
and the workers' organisation becomes what it perforce must be in a
capitalist society - a means not for refusing to recognise and
overthrowing the bosses, but simply for hedging round and limiting
the bosses' power.
This is what always has happened and could not happen otherwise
since the masses, before taking on board the idea and acquiring the
strength to transform the whole of society from the bottom up, feel
the need for modest improvements, and for an organisation that will
defend their immediate interests while they prepare for the ideal
life of the future. So what should the anarchists do when the
workers' organisation, faced with the inflow of a majority driven to
it by their economic needs alone, ceases to be a revolutionary force
and becomes involved in a balancing act between capital and labour
and possibly even a factor in preserving the status quo?
\ There are comrades who say- and have done so when this question
is raised - that the anarchists should withdraw and form minority
groupings. But this, to me, means condemning ourselves to going back
to the beginning. The new grouping, if it is not to remain a mere
affinity group with no influence in the workers' struggle, will
describe the same parabola as the organisation it left behind. In the
meantime the seeds of bitterness will be sown among the workers and
its best efforts will be squandered in competition with the majority
organisation. Then, in a spirit of solidarity, in order not to fall
into the trap of playing the bosses' game and in order to pursue the
interests of their own members, it will come to terms with the
majority and bow to its leadership.
A labour organisation that were to style itself anarchist, that
was and remained genuinely anarchist and was made up exclusively of
dyed-in-the-wool anarchists could be a form - in some circumstances
an extremely useful one - of anarchist grouping; but it would not be
the labour movement and it would lack the purpose of such a movement,
which is to attract the mass of the workers into the struggle, and,
especially for us, to create a vast field for propaganda and to make
new anarchists. For these reasons I believe that anarchists must
remain - and where possible, naturally, with dignity and independence
- within those organisations as they are, to work within them and
seek to push them for ward to the best of their ability, ready to
avail themselves, in critical moments of history, of the influence
they may have gained, and to transform them swiftly from modest
weapons of defence to powerful tools of attack. Meanwhile, of
course, the movement itself, the movement of ideas, must not be
neglected, for this provides the essential base for which all the
rest provides the means and tools. Yours for anarchy
December 1925
Errico Malatesta
Further Thoughts on Anarchism and the Labour Movement
Obviously I am unable to make myself understood to the Spanish
speaking comrades, at least as regards my ideas on the labour
movement and on the role of anarchists within it. I tried to explain
these ideas in an article that was published in El Productor on 8th
January (an article whose heading, 'The Labour Movement and
Anarchism' was wrongly translated as 'Syndicalism and Anarchism').
But from the response that I saw in those issues of El Productor that
reached me I see I haven't managed to make myself understood. I will
therefore return to the subject in the hope of greater success this
time.
The question is this: I agree with the Spanish and South American
comrades on the anarchist goals that must guide and inform all our
activity. But I disagree with some as to whether the anarchist
programme, or rather, label, should be imposed on workers' unions,
and whether, should such a programme fail to meet with the approval
of the majority, the anarchists should remain within the wider
organisation, continuing from within to make propaganda and opposing
the authoritarian, monopolist and collaborationist tendencies that
are a feature of all workers' organisations, or to separate from them
and set up minority organisations.
I maintain that as the mass of workers are not anarchist a labour
organisation that calls itself by that name must either be made up
exclusively of anarchists - and therefore be no more than a simple
and useless duplicate of the anarchist groups - or remain open to
workers of all opinions. In which case the anarchist label is pure
gloss, useful only for helping to commit anarchists to the thousand
and one transactions which a union is obliged to carry out in the
present day reality of life if it wishes to protect the immediate
interests of its members. I have come across an article by D. Abad
de Santillan [Diego Abad de Santillan (1897-1983), Argentinean by
birth. Active in the Spanish Civil War. Journalist and editor. ]
which Opposes this view ... Santillan believes that I confuse
syndicalism with the labour movement, while the fact is that I have
always opposed syndicalism and have been a warm supporter of the
labour movement.
I am against syndicalism, both as a doctrine and a practice,
because it strikes me as a hybrid creature that puts its faith, not
necessarily in reformism as Santillan sees it, but in classist
exclusiveness and authoritarianism. I favour the labour movement
because I believe it to be the most effective way of raising the
morale of the workers and q because, too, it is a grand and universal
enterprise that can be ignored 3 only by those who have lost their
grip on real life. At the same time I am well aware that, setting out
as it does to protect the short-term interests of the workers, it
tends naturally to reformism and cannot, therefore, be confused with
the anarchist movement itself. ;
Santillan insists on arguing that my ideal is 'a pure labour
movement, independent of any social tendency, and which holds its own
goals within itself' When have I ever said such a thing? Short of
going back - which I could easily do - to what Santillan calls the
prehistoric time of my earlier activities, I recall that as far back
as 1907, at the Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam, I found myself
crossing swords with the 'Charter of Amiens' syndicalists and
expressing my total distrust of the miraculous virtues of a
'syndicalism that sufficed unto itself'
Santillan says that a pure labour movement has never existed,
does not exist and cannot exist without the influence of external
ideologies and 7 challenges me to give a single example to the
contrary. But what I'm saying is the same thing! From the time of the
First International and before, the parties - and I use the term in
the general sense of people who share the same ideas and aims - have
invariably sought to use i the labour movement for their own ends. It
is natural and right that '~ this is so, and I should like the
anarchists, as I think Santillan would too, not to neglect the power
of the labour movement as a means of action. The whole point at issue
is whether it suits our aims, in terms of action and propaganda, for
the labour organisations to be open to all workers, irrespective of
philosophical or social creed, or whether they should be split into
different political and social tendencies. This is a matter not of
principle but of tactics, and involves different solutions according
to time and place. But in general to me it seems better that the
anarchists remain, when they can, within the largest possible
groupings.
I wrote: 'A labour organisation that styles itself anarchist,
that was and is genuinely anarchist and is made up exclusively of
dyed-in-the-wool anarchists, could be a form - in some circumstances
an extremely useful one - of anarchist grouping; but it would not be
the labour movement and it would lack the purpose of such a
movement.' This statement, which seems simple and obvious to me,
dumbfounds Santillan. He throws himself at it in transcendental
terms, concluding that 'if anarchism is the idea of liberty it can
never work against the ends of the labour movement as all other
factions do.'
Let's keep our feet firmly on the ground. What is the aim of the
labour movement? For the vast majority, who are not anarchist, and
who, save at exceptional times of exalted heroism, think more of the
present moment than of the future, the aim of the labour movement is
the protection and improvement of the conditions of the workers now
and is not effective if its ranks are not swelled with the greatest
possible number of wage earners, united in solidarity against their
bosses. For us, and in general all people of ideas, the main reason
for our interest in the labour movement is the opportunities it
affords for propaganda and preparation for the future - and even this
aim is lost if we gather together solely with like-minded people.
Santillan says that if the Italian anarchists had managed to
destroy the General Confederation of Labour there would perhaps be no
fascism today. This is possible. But how to destroy the General
Confederation if the overwhelming majority of the workers are not
anarchist and look to wherever there is least danger and the greatest
chance of obtaining some small benefit in the short term? I do not
wish to venture into that kind of hindsight that consists in saying
what would have happened if this or that had been done, because once
in this realm anyone can say what they like without fear of being
proved wrong. But I will allow myself one question. Since the General
Confederation could not be destroyed and replaced with another
equally powerful organisation, would it not have been better to have
avoided schism and remain within the organisation to warn members
against the somnolence of its leaders? We can learn something from
the constant efforts made by those leaders to frustrate any proposal
for unification and keep the dissidents at bay.
A final proof of the mistaken way in which certain Spanish
comrades interpret my ideas on the labour movement: In the
periodical from San Feliu de Guixol, Accion Obrera is an article by
Vittorio Aurelio in which he states:
'I believe that my mission is to act within the unions, seeking to
open from within the labour organisations an ever upward path towards
the full realisation of our ideals. And whether we achieve that
depends on our work, our morale and our behaviour. But we must act
through persuasion, not imposition. For this reason I disagree that
the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) in Spain should directly
call itself anarchist, when, unfortunately, the immense majority of
its members do not know what this means, what libertarian ideology is
about. I wonder, if the defenders of this argument know that the
members of the workers' organisation do not think or act
anarchically, why is there this anxiety to impose a name, when we
know full well that names alone mean nothing?'
This is precisely my point. And I wonder why, in saying this,
Vittorio Aurelio finds it necessary to declare that he does not agree
with Malatesta! Either my style of writing is getting too obscure or
my writings are being regularly distorted by the Spanish translators.
March 1926
It should be pointed out that
the piece above in no way implies Malatesta was in agreement with the
Platform. The same collection of translations also includes two
critical articles he wrote about the platform.
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