First International Syndicalist Congress - French Dissent

French Dissent

The French General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the largest syndicalist organization worldwide, however, was critical of the proposal. As a member of the ISNTUC, it strove to radicalize it from within. While in most countries both radical syndicalist and mainstream socialist labor federations existed, in France, there was only the syndicalist CGT, and thus it could be a member of the ISNTUC. However, the FVdG in Germany, for example, where the ISNTUC-affiliated Free Trade Unions would not allow a rival organization from the country to join, did not have this possibility. The CGT wanted to preserve unity within the European labor movement, even with non-syndicalist groups, and was afraid affiliation with a syndicalist international would jeopardize its relations to the mainstream socialist unions. Moreover, the CGT, itself, was in a crisis, with the reformists within the organization rapidly gaining influence and making it even harder to forge alliances with other radical unions.

All foreign syndicalists rejected the CGT's view. Some held that the CGT could participate in the syndicalist congress while remaining in the ISNTUC. Others felt membership in the social democratic international and syndicalist doctrine were incompatible and considered revolutionizing the social democrats impossible. They warned that the CGT was straying from the revolutionary course by collaborating with the reformist social democrats. They pointed out that the French union already had a considerable reformist wing.

The French responded by pointing to the fact that the British ISEL's domestic policy was similar to its international aims. The ISEL did not constitute a union in its own right, but rather tried to infiltrate and radicalize existing unions, particularly the General Federation of Trade Unions. Pierre Monatte, a CGT leader, even declared that by changing its course, it would harm unionism in all of Europe. He also insisted that it would be impossible for the CGT to both participate in the ISNTUC and the syndicalist congress.

Meanwhile, both the ISEL leaders Tom Mann and Guy Bowman and Cornelissen adopted a new stance towards the French dissidents. Bowman expressed his confidence that the CGT would change its mind once the congress was about to start, while Mann even offered the CGT the role of host to the congress. Knowing the CGT as a whole would not change its position, the two attempted to draw the bourses du travail, the regional organizations of the CGT, to participate with these remarks. Cornelissen, himself active in the French syndicalist movement, explicitly adopted this approach: "Is the French movement organized on the basis of the autonomy of local and regional unions or is it not?", he asked. These approaches were, however, largely unsuccessful, as the CGT leaders, even at a local level, were not impressed.

As the CGT did not participate, the New Statesman would later liken the congress to "playing Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark".