chists, under the intellectual and practical leadership of such able men as Kropotkin, Pelloutier, Pouget, Pataud, etc., realized that their policy of isolating themselves in little groups was ineffective. They decided to propagate their ideas in the mass organizations of the workers, and in order to do so, made their famous "raid" on the trade unions. In a few years' time, grace to their extreme militancy, they succeeded in breaking the power of the conservative and Socialist leaders in the trade unions and in winning almost complete control themselves.
But during the struggle the trade union Anarchists changed: their own philosophy and tactics profoundly. Casting aside many of their old individualistic notions, they came to adopt the conception of the class struggle. They also saw in the trade union the sole means of working class emancipation, and in its method, the strike, the great revolutionary weapon. In a word, their movement gave birth to the modern philosophy of Syndicalism. This doctrine came clearly to light for the first time during the General Confederation of Labor (C. G. T.) Convention at Amiens in 1906. Then was written the famous "Charte d' Amiens," which still serves as the classic statement of Syndicalism. It says:
"In the daily struggle for betterment, Syndicalism seeks the coordination of the workers' efforts, the increase in well-being of the toilers by the realization of immediate benefits such as the decrease of working hours, the increase of wages, etc. But this work is only one side of the task of Syndicalism: it also prepares for integral emancipation, which can only be realized by the expropriation of the capitalists: it indicates the general strike as the means of action, and it considers that the trade union, which today is the group of resistance, will be in the future the group of production and distribution, the base of social reorganization."[1]
With its new and vigorous leadership and its inspiring philosophy, the C. G. T. developed the greatest activity and militancy ever displayed by a labor movement. It
- ↑ Kritsky, "L'Evolution du Syndicalisme en France," P. 384.
