Editing Syndicalism (section)

=== World War I ===
{{Further|1917 French Army mutinies}}
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 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".{{Sfn|Darlington|2008|pp=45–47}}

[[File:Christian-cornelissen.jpg|thumb|[[Christiaan Cornelissen]], a Dutch [[anarcho-syndicalist]] who supported World War I]]
When World War I broke out in July 1914, socialist parties and trade unions{{spaced ndash}} both in neutral and belligerent countries{{spaced ndash}} supported their respective nations' war efforts or national defense,{{refn|group=note|Russian, Serbian, and Italian socialists were the exception.{{Sfn|Eley|2002|pp=125, 127}}}} despite previous pledges to do 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 the state was known as the {{lang|fr|[[union sacrée]]}} in France, the {{lang|de|[[Burgfriedenspolitik|Burgfrieden]]}} in Germany, and ''{{ill|godsvrede|nl|Godsvrede}}'' in the Netherlands.{{Sfnm|1a1=Eley|1y=2002|1pp=125–127|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2006|2p=1005|3a1=Thorpe|3y=2010a|3pp=24–27}} 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Darlington|1y=2008|1p=47|2a1=Thorpe|2y=1989|2p=89}} Despite this, most syndicalists remained true to their [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalist]] and [[anti-militarist]] principles by opposing the war and their respective nation's participation in it.{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|p=983}}

The majority of the French CGT and a sizable minority in the Italian USI did not.{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|p=984}} 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Darlington|1y=2006|1p=990|2a1=van der Linden|2a2=Thorpe|2y=1990|2p=5}} It followed 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 was a war between democracy and republicanism on the one side and barbaric militarism on the other.{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|p=992}} 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 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 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1pp=11–13|2a1=Darlington|2y=2006|2p=994}}

[[File:Die einigkeit.PNG|thumb|August 1914 edition of {{lang|de|[[Die Einigkeit]]}}, a German syndicalist newspaper, protesting the outbreak of war]]
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 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1pp=13–14|2a1=Darlington|2y=2006|2p=995}} 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 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.{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|pp=992–993}} Syndicalist organizations in other countries nearly unanimously opposed the war.{{Sfnm|1a1=Darlington|1y=2006|1pp=983–984|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2001|2p=22}} In neutral Spain, [[José Negre]] of 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Darlington|1y=2006|1p=985|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2001|2p=10}}

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 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 was quickly quelled by the British army and Connolly was executed.{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|pp=987–989}} In Germany, the small [[Free Association of German Trade Unions]] (FVdG) opposed the socialists' {{lang|de|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.{{Sfn|Thorpe|2001|pp=6–7}} The United States did not enter the war until 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, 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dubofsky|1y=1969|1pp=349–355, 357|2a1=Darlington|2y=2006|2pp=997–999}} Syndicalists in 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.{{Sfn|Thorpe|2001|pp=8–9}}<!-- Maybe add Australia: Burgmann. -->

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 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.{{Sfn|Thorpe|2006|pp=1010–1012, 1016}} 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.{{Sfn|Thorpe|2006|pp=1013–1014}} While syndicalists were only able to put up a rather limited practical struggle against World War I,{{Sfn|Darlington|2006|p=984}} they also looked to challenge the war on an ideological or cultural level.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1pp=14–15|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2010a|2pp=23–24}} 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1p=15|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2010a|2p=34}} German, Swedish, Dutch, and Spanish syndicalists denounced nationalism with {{lang|es|Tierra y Libertad}}, a syndicalist journal in Barcelona, calling it a "grotesque mentality". The Dutch newspaper {{lang|nl|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 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1pp=16–17|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2010a|2pp=32–34}} Syndicalists also argued against the notion that the war 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]]'', the very workers dying in the war were denied access to that culture by capitalist conditions.{{Sfnm|1a1=Thorpe|1y=2001|1p=17|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2010a|2pp=34–37}} 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.{{Sfn|Thorpe|2010a|pp=28–31}}

As the war progressed, disaffection with worsening living conditions at home and 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 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.{{Sfnm|1a1=Eley|1y=2002|1pp=131–133, 136–137|2a1=Thorpe|2y=2001|2p=19|3a1=Darlington|3y=2006|3p=1002}}