Editing Syndicalism (section)

=== Reasons ===
[[File:Mayday celebration in Stockholm.jpg|left|thumb|250x250px|Syndicalist mayday in Stockholm, 2010]]
There was a significant uptick in workers' radicalism in most developed [[capitalist state]]s from 1911 to 1922, although it relented during World War I. Strikes increased in frequency, numbers of workers involved, and duration. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, syndicalism was only one way this radicalization expressed itself.{{Sfnm|1a1=Screpanti|1y=1984|1pp=512–513|2a1=van der Linden|2a2=Thorpe|2y=1990|2p=6}} In the United Kingdom, the period from 1910 to 1914 became known as the [[Great Labour Unrest]]. While many historians see syndicalism as a consequence of this unrest, [[Elie Halévy]] and the politician [[Lord Robert Cecil]] argue it was its cause. Employers in France likewise blamed an upsurge in workers' militancy in the same period on syndicalist leaders.{{Sfn|Darlington|2013|pp=38–39}} Syndicalism was further encouraged by employers' hostility to workers' actions.{{Sfn|Darlington|2008|pp=55–56}} The economist [[Ernesto Screpanti]] hypothesized that strike waves like the one from 1911 to 1922 generally occur during the upper turning-points of the periodic global long [[cycles of boom and bust]] known as [[Kondratieff waves]]. He argued that such waves of proletarian insurgency were global in reach, saw workers breaking free of the dynamics of the capitalist system, and aimed to overthrow that system.{{Sfn|Screpanti|1984|pp=516–519, 544–545}}

According to van der Linden and Thorpe, workers' radicalization manifested itself in their rejection of the dominant strategies in the labor movement, which was led by reformist trade unions and socialist parties. [[Vladimir Lenin]] posited that "revolutionary syndicalism in many countries was a direct and inevitable result of opportunism, reformism and parliamentary cretinism." A feeling that ideological disputes were draining workers' power led Dutch, French, and American syndicalist organizations to declare themselves independent of any political groups. In countries like Italy, Spain, and Ireland, which was still under British rule, parliamentary politics were not seen as a serious means for workers to express their grievances. Most workers were disenfranchised, yet even in France or Britain, where most male workers had the right to vote, many workers did not trust party politics. The enormous numerical growth of well-organized socialist parties, such as in Germany and Italy, did not correlate with any real advance in the [[class struggle]] in the minds of many workers, as these parties were thought to be overly concerned with building the parties themselves and with electoral politics than with the class struggle, and had therefore lost their original revolutionary edge. The socialists preached the inevitability of socialism but were in practice bureaucratic and reformist. Similarly, the trade unions frequently allied with those parties, equally growing in numbers, were denounced for their expanding bureaucracies, their centralization, and for failing to represent workers' interests. Between 1902 and 1913, the German [[Free Trade Unions (Germany)|Free Trade Unions]]' membership grew by 350% but its bureaucracy by more than 1900%.{{Sfnm|1a1=Darlington|1y=2008|1pp=57–61|2a1=van der Linden|2a2=Thorpe|2y=1990|2p=12–14}}

Another common explanation for the rise of syndicalism is that it was a result of the economic backwardness of the countries in which it emerged, particularly France. Newer studies have questioned this account.{{Sfn|Darlington|2008|pp=50–52}} According to van der Linden and Thorpe, changes in labor processes contributed to the radicalization of workers and thereby to the rise of syndicalism. This rise took place during the [[Second Industrial Revolution]]. Two groups of workers were most attracted to syndicalism: casual or seasonal laborers who frequently changed jobs, and workers whose occupations were becoming obsolete as a result of technological advances. The first group included landless agricultural workers, construction workers, and dockers, all of whom were disproportionately represented in several countries' syndicalist movements. Because they frequently changed jobs, such workers did not have close relationships with their employers and the risk of losing one's job as a result of a strike was reduced. Moreover, because of the time constraints of their jobs they were forced to act immediately in order to achieve anything and could not plan for the long term by building up strike funds or powerful labor organizations or by engaging in mediation. Their working conditions gave them an inclination to engage in direct confrontation with employers and apply direct action. The second group included miners, railway employees, and certain factory workers. Their occupations were [[deskilled]] by technological and organizational changes. These changes made workers from the second group similar in some respects to the first group. They did not entirely result from the introduction of new technology but were also caused by changes in management methods. This included increased supervision of workers, [[piecework]], internal promotions, all designed make workers docile and loyal and to transfer knowledge and control over the process of production from workers to employers. Frustration with this loss of power led to formal and informal resistance by workers.{{Sfn|van der Linden|Thorpe|1990|pp=4, 7–11}} Altena disagrees with this explanation. According to him, it was workers with significant autonomy in their jobs and pride in their skills who were most attracted to syndicalism. Moreover, he argues that explanations based on workers' occupations cannot explain why only a minority of workers in those jobs became syndicalists or why in some professions workers in different locations had vastly different patterns of organization. The small size of many syndicalist unions also makes observations about which workers joined statistically irrelevant.{{Sfn|Altena|2010|pp=205–207}}

[[File:Hornsbergshage 1909.jpg|thumb|Meeting during the [[1909 general strike in Sweden]]]]
Syndicalism came to be seen as a viable strategy because the general strike became a practical possibility. Although it had been advocated before, there were not sufficient numbers of wage workers to bring society to a standstill and they had not achieved a sufficient degree of organization and solidarity until the 1890s, according van der Linden and Thorpe. Several general or political strikes then took place before World War I: [[Belgian general strike of 1893|in 1893]] and [[Belgian general strike of 1902|in 1902]] in Belgium, [[Swedish general strike of 1902|in 1902]] and [[Swedish general strike|in 1909]] in Sweden, [[Railroad strikes of 1903 in the Netherlands|in 1903]] in the Netherlands, and [[1904 Italian general strike|in 1904]] in Italy, in addition to significant work stoppages during the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]].{{Sfn|van der Linden|Thorpe|1990|p=15}}

Darlington cites the significance of the conscious intervention by syndicalist militants. The industrial unrest of the period created conditions which made workers receptive to syndicalist leaders' agitation. They spread their ideas through pamphlets and newspapers and had considerable influence in a number of labor disputes.{{Sfn|Darlington|2008|pp=82–85}} Finally, van der Linden and Thorpe point to spatial and geographical factors that shaped the rise of syndicalism. Workers who would otherwise not have had an inclination to syndicalism joined because syndicalism was dominant in their locales. For example, workers in the Canadian and American West were generally more radical and drawn to the IWW and One Big Union than their counterparts in the East. Similarly, southern workers were more drawn to syndicalism in Italy.{{Sfn|van der Linden|Thorpe|1990|pp=15–16}} According to Altena, the emergence of syndicalism must be analyzed at the level of local communities. Only differences in local social and economic structures explain why some towns had a strong syndicalist presence, while others did not.{{Sfn|Altena|2010|pp=209–214}}
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