Invitations
Yet, in February 1913, both the British Industrial Syndicalist Education League (ISEL) and the Dutch National Labor Secretariat (NAS) published very similar invitations for an international syndicalist congress independently of each other. Both criticized the existing labor internationals, especially the reformist social democratic International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centers (ISNTUC), from which, according to the Dutch group, "all revolutionary propaganda is excluded systematically." Likewise, its political counterpart, the Second International, was attacked by the British as a "body that exacts a pledge of parliamentarism and is composed of glib-tongued politicians who promise to do things for us, but cannot even if they wanted." Furthermore, the syndicalists lamented the lack of an international syndicalist organization. The British proposal called for the congress to be held in London, while the Dutch left this question open and called for suggestions for the site of the meeting.
The invitations were immediately received warmly by numerous syndicalists, the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG), Pierre Ramus's journal Wohlstand für Alle from Austria, the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC), the Spanish periodical Tierra y Libertad, the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States, and the Syndicalist League of North America. Christiaan Cornelissen, editor of the Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste and a prominent anarchist in Paris, also welcomed the idea, but considered the May date proposed by the ISEL too soon, as the decentralized decision-making employed by syndicalists required more time for preparation.
Read more about this topic: First International Syndicalist Congress
Famous quotes containing the word invitations:
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