Nothing to do with Courant Syndicaliste Revolutionaire people who publish Syndicaliste and are still in and around the CGT?
question re: the "Cercle syndicaliste lutte de classe"
Michel Collinet was another founder and the anarchist Charles Ridel (Louis Mercier-Vega) was also active in it. It was set up in Jan 1937 but didn't survive the start of war in 1939.
So nothing to do with the Courant Syndicaliste Revolutionnaire ( which unites militants in the CGT but also in the SUD and CNT_Vignoles)
They certainly expresses interest in joining the IWW, but it didn't come to anything, afaik. Less than 25 members? No idea. They must be spread quite thinly across the CGT and CNT then! What makes you think they are Trotskyists? I would have thought they were quite specific to French revolutionary syndicalism, a current that has gone through various organised forms. They appear to favour fairly heavy involvement in the CGT and don't seem to have any connection with anarcho-syndicalism ala CNT-AIT or the Union of Anarcho-syndicalists. I'd be interested to hear why you think theymight be Trots.
Website of the CSR http://kaou.phpnet.org/ in case they know owt.
Straightforward revolutionary syndicalists in the tradition of Monatte and co and their paper Revolution Proletarienne ( and certainly not Trots)
The Revolution Proletarienne people were a founding component of the Cercle Syndicaliste grouping ( a bit of info on them in the Bossiere bio)
Interesting. This was our impresson of them as well (as Battlescar). They would send us their printed stuff and looked pretty straightforward revolutionary syndicalist.
Has anyone ever met them?
The reference to a French proto-trotskyist "anarcho-syndicalist" organization probably refers to one which is close to the French Lambertists Workers Party (PT)and their front the International Liason Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Liaison_Committee_for_a_Workers'_International)
I don't recall their name at the moment. They publish some sort of on-line newsletter and work inside the reformist French trade unions (I think the CGT-FO).
Gotta run.
No, that "anarchosyndicalist" grouping is a Lambertist front to entice genuine libertarians. There's a long history of this with Lambertism, with FO leader Alexandre Hebert portraying himself as an anarchist when he was a card-carrying Lambertist and had been Lambert's chauffeur at one time.
By the way in france it's usually referred to as FO rather than CGT-FO. That pretence was dropped a long time ago.
It was just something i heard third-hand from some french-speakers.
It was only a year ago or so that they queried about joining us, and they didn't give a whole lot of information but it seemed to be the case that they were small and were splitting out of the CNT-F.
Salut tout le monde,
I'm from the CSR in France. I'm glad to see people inerested in french Unionist movement.
I would like to share some facts with you to explain what we are (the CSR) and our links with the other revolutionaries.
CSR was created by unionists from CNT-F Vignoles and from SUD. Comrades invvolved in CNT-F where thinking this organisation could be the structure to coordinate Revolutionary-Syndialists in the union movement in France. Some anarcho-syndicalists (the more sectarians and masked leaders obviously) refused this open door and maintained a philosophical line against a solidarity class line in CNT-F. Nowadays CNT-F remains the intellectual shelter of students and workers who are afraid of mass and class unionism, afraid to really fight bosses in enterprises. They prefer being some revolutionaries all together without changing conditions for the majority of the working class.
The founders of CSR decided to leave CNT-F in 1996-1998 but some supporters of CSR are still members of CNT-F.
More and more members of CSR are now in CGT, the main class union in france.
Of course we are not thousand, or Revolution would be done yet.
Since the creation of CSR, we have worked a lot to know our own history. CGT before the first World War was the Revolutionary Union. 2006 is the birtday of the "Charte d'Amiens". This is a text voted with a enormous majority of the CGT in 1906 (100 years ago almost like IWW) that say that union must defend workers now and prepare workers control on society in the same time. These goals are always our goals today.
In ten years we have learnt much more things about union strategy. Revolutionary CGT was built on territorial union solidarity structure called "Bourses du Travail" or Local Unions today.
Our main task is to recreate or reinforce CGT Local Union in France. We have some succes in that experience. We need to make this job to reorganise working class in France who have been defeated since 30 years in France (precarity, unemployement, privatisations, retirement and health assurances attacked...).
The experience of CGT in France is very interesting because theirs militants (some anarchists but mostly members of Social Party not agree with the electoralist line) were able to coordinate their forces to developp a mass and revolutionary in France.
The influence of Revolutionary Unionism remains strong during years. The CSR were created after the first World War to change the direction of CGT. The bureaucrats had collaborated with governement to send workers being killed on the war battlefields.
The CSR were the majority but the bureaucrats and a small conspirationist anarcho-syndicalist group "the Pacte" who took places in the CSR with "boring from within" method organized the split of the CGT union.
The Russian Revolution and his myth make the majority of revolutionary-syndicalists to involved in french Communist Parties like in all over the world. Soon some Revolutionary-Syndicalists understood the error of the involvement in CPs but RSyndicalism was divided. Monatte and others were banned from CP in 1924 and created "Syndicalist Ligue" and his newspaper "Proletarian Revolution". Lots of CP unionist remains R-Syndicalist fighting for union independance.
It the reason why they created the "Cercle Syndicaliste Lutte de Classe" after the general strike with factories occupations in 1936.
The nowadays CSR in France is note directly the child of these RS movements but we are their practical children and we are also interested in the international experiences like IWW and RILU (Red International of Labor Unions).
I hope these little explanations are interesting and we are ok to answer questions as our work give us enough time.
I have one question what is the subject of this internet site. I found it by a google search.
Kaou for the CSR
Hi Monatte, thanks for the information.
Monatte wrote:
I have one question what is the subject of this internet site. I found it by a google search.
We are a libertarian communist resource for news, analysis, history, discussion and texts. Read more about what it is here: http://libcom.org/notes/about
Thanks Monatte for your interesting email. I'll probably have some different questions later.
From an historical note, didn't P. Monatte go over to Trotskyism and then went back to an independent revolutionary syndicalist position after WW2. I have some post WW2 copies of PR and am familiar with some of his 1950s viewpoints.
I'm sure this must be in French, but I have it in english. In Trotsky's pamphlet "On the Trade Unions" [Pathfinder Press]he dedicates a chapter entitled "The Errors in the Principles of Syndicalism-To Serve in the Discussion with Monatte and his Friends" (10/21/1929). The piece was a effort to connvince Monatte of the errors of syndicalism and the right path of Trotskyist socialism.
After WW2 did P. Monatte have any influence? If so, in which sectors?
--mitch
Monatte knew well Trotsky because trotsky was a refugee in Paris before going back to Russia. Lots of russian revolutionaries were in Paris. Lozovsky who will be the secretary of RILU was also a refugee in Paris and moreover member of french CGT.
Trotsky knew well that Revolutionary-Syndicalists were the majority in French unionist movement. To win support in our country and in most of the countries inthe world, Trotsky and Lenin tried to convince RSs that the russian revolution was the new form of the Syndicalist Revolution.
This operation has succeded in most countries : Monatte in france became member of CP, Tom Mann in UK, Foster in USA...
But RSs soon have been in opposition with the leaders of CP. Monatte wanted "union commissions" of the french CP to be coordination tools in union movement but not a boring from within tool like leninists.
Links with Trotsky remains during years. One member of CSR was trotskyst, Alfred Rosmer who got in reponsability in 3rd International. What it is interesting is that most unionists fighed during years to maintain union independance from CP. They didn't want that politicians divided the union.
Monatte supported Trotsky as opponent to Stalin but was'nt interested by the trotskyst movement that developped in France with some intellectuals and still remains middle class intellectual movement.
Just after been fired from CP in 1924, Monatte and others created "Syndicalist Ligue" to maintain the links among RSs in CGT and CGTU and also in autonomous unions.
It seems that Monatte did'nt participate to the "Cercle Syndicaliste Lutte de Classe". We think that there has been a loss between generations of militants during 1936 general strike.
New militants appeared and "Syndicalist Ligue" did'nt organise them.
After WW2 Monatte and SRs had still some influence but less. The "communists" were majority and bloked the CGT union working.
The SRs were not enough organised to counter attaked. Anarcho-syndicalists decided to create CNT in 1946 but to sectarian for SRs. SRs were divided between CGT-FO, CGT under CP control, Autonomes unions. The magazine of SRs founded by Monatte became an intellectual and and mostly education workers thing, more and more separated from union reality.
Salut Monatte. I am increasingly interested in these currents, historically, and your continuation of their legacies. I would look forward to hearing more from you on this forum.
For the moment, though: do you know if there is a conventional name in English for the "Cercle Syndicaliste Lutte de Classe"?
Hello
I am the author of the article in Alternative libertaire you were speaking about.
I don't speak a very good English, but I would suggest, for a translation "Classwar Syndicalist Circle".
Unfortunately, David Berry, in his excellent book A History of the French Anarchiste Movement (1917-1945) didn't try to translate it.
If you translate my article in English, would you please send it to me?
Thanks!
Guillaume Davranche
Thanks Kaouu for the interesting reply.
One last question for today. You wrote that the CSR
"are also interested in the international experiences like ...RILU (Red International of Labor Unions)."
Clearly once the anarcho-syndicalist and syndicalist unions formed the IWA/AIT in 1922 those left in and around the RILU were close to bolshevik positions, if not outright dominated by the authoritarian communists. From stuff that I've read in english, it appears that the Communist International set the "line" for the RILU. So I'd be curious in what ways the CSR would find the RILU experiance of interest. If for historical reasons, why not also the IWA/AIT and the Amsterdam International (social democratic)as well?
Comradely,
mitch
"Lozovsky who will be the secretary of RILU was also a refugee in Paris and moreover member of french CGT." writes Kanou.
For more information on Lozovsky see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lozovsky/index.htm
Solomon Abramovich (Alexandr)Lozovsky Archive
1878-1952
--mitch
"Class Struggle Syndicalist Circle" is the best translation for the french. Class war is "guerre de classes" in french, not "lutte des classes".
I think it is difficult for us to understand what unionists were thinking in this period. The myth of the russian revolution was very strong. A lots of anarchists were the first to support the russian revolution in 1920s. It seems to be the revolution all the militants were waiting for so long.
It was normal to support. When the RILU was created, lots of unionists accepted the link between CPs and Unions. But the union tactic was at the beginning very intersting : indutrial unionism, revolutionary goals, class union unity...
We think that sectarian anarcho-syndicalists who made the departure for IWA made a mistake. It was possible to organise unionists in RILU and to fight CPs influence in them. Most of the militants in RILU were SRs before. The important fo them is the coordination of revolutionaries not the party.
We have made a historic research about RILU and IWA but it is in french.
If someone want to read it, it is here :
Monatte wrote:
We have made a historic research about RILU and IWA but it is in french.
If someone want to read it, it is here :
Pure authoritarian crap.
I'm wondering if anyone knows whether there's an established name in English for a current started in 1937 within the French CGT called the Cercle syndicaliste lutte de classe?? According to this article, it was apparently started by anarchists whose factory groups the UA wasn't formally recognizing, Pivertists, and anti-stalinists ex of the CGTU. I've tried punching various combinations of Class Struggle Union (or Syndicalist) Circle (etc) into Google with no results, figured might as well try my luck here.
If not, I'm trying to put that article into English, so I guess I'm open to suggestions of what would be the most appropriate translation.
Oh, and if anyone knows anything about how things went for them, please share, as the article doesn't really elaborate and it sounds like an interesting effort.
First topic, sorry if I made a mistake posting it here.