FWIW.....

Without wanting to divert or clog up Akai's informative piece "Anarchosyndicalism against fascism: a response to recent lnsinuations"
http://libcom.org/blog/anarchosyndicalism-against-fascism-response-recent-lnsinuations-31102015
I was curious what the co-authors of "Black Flame" had to say about the artifical matter of "syndicalism and faccism" (sic).

I have cut and pasted pages 149-152 whcih should give a clear enough perspective of the authors on this matter. I would think that this will give some clarity, at least when the book was written and AK published, that there was no endorsement of Sorel and that school of thought or those who moved out of the labor movement to the nationalist movement.

Bakunin, Sorel, and the Origins of Syndicalism
Most immediately, it is necessary to confront a number of traditional arguments
that deny a connection between anarchism and syndicalism, and in some instances,
even suggest an opposition between the two currents. Such assertions may
be classified into two groups: that which maintains anarchism and syndicalism were
based on conflicting principles; and that which identifies the roots of revolutionary
syndicalism as lying outside anarchism—specifically either the late nineteenthcentury
"Revolt against Reason," or classical Marxism.
The first set of claims is represented by the perspective that although "some
syndicalist viewpoints share a superficial similarity with anarchism, particularly
its hostility to politics and political action," "syndicalism is not truly a form of
anarchism."1
According to this, by "accepting the need for mass, collective action
and decision-making, syndicalism is much superior to classical anarchism." A variant
of this argument, often made in reference to Italian syndicalism, suggests that
anarchism and syndicalism were rival movements that "agreed on tactics but not on
principles," or were different, albeit overlapping, tendencies.2
For Miller, syndicalism
was "far from being an anarchist invention," although its stress on class struggle,
direct action, and self-management helped make it attractive to the anarchists.3
Another
writer points out that while there were similarities between anarchism and
syndicalism, the "anarchist movement continued in existence parallel to syndicalism
and there was considerable interchange between the two."4
149
150 ... Black Flame
This contention is commonly linked to the view that attributes the origins
of the syndicalist conception to Sorel, a retired French engineer and former Marxist,
and consequently, to his admirers, like Antonio Labriola in Italy.5
According to
Louis Levine, this claim was first developed in Werner Sombart's Socialism and the
Social Movementy which appeared in English translation in 1909, and then "made its
way into other writings on revolutionary syndicalism.>>6
Nearly a century later, this
idea remains pervasive. Joll described Sorel as "the theorist of anarcho-syndicalism,"
while Kieran Allen alleged that the French CGT was "committed to the ideas of
Georges Sorel."7
According to Darrow Schechter, Sorel was "the leading theorist of
Revolutionary Syndicalism," and he therefore speaks of syndicalism's "synthesis of
Marx and Sorel"—a view shared by Charles Bertrand, who maintains that the syndicalists
"attempted to reconcile the positions of Karl Marx and Georges Sorel."8
Jeremy Jennings refers to Sorel as "syndicalism's foremost theoretician,," and to his
paper, Le Mouvement socialistey as "the syndicalist movement's principal journal."9
Sorel's ideas were not always consistent (according to Jennings, the key feature
of Sorel s thought was precisely its "disunity" and "pluralism").10
Sorel was also
very much a representative of a particular mood among radical Western intellectuals
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a mood that has been
called the "Revolt against Reason."11
This stressed feeling over thought, action over
theory, will over reason, and youth over civilisation. It is from this perspective that
Sorel's characteristic opposition to rationalism and parliamentary democracy, and
his belief in the regenerative power of myth and violence, must be understood. Sorel
thought that Europe was in a state of decadence, and that the bourgeoisie was incapable
of carrying out the historic mission ascribed to it by Marx: the development
of an advanced industrial basis for a future socialist society. There is no doubt that
Sorel gravitated toward the French CGT when it adopted a syndicalist platform; he
believed that the general strike of the syndicalists was a heroic (if irrational) myth
that would galvanise the working class into violent action and thereby regenerate
Europe.12
By linking syndicalism to the Revolt against Reason, this identification of
Sorel with syndicalism has significant implications. For Bertrand, the syndicalists
"failed to produce a coherent ideology ... the only identifiable common principle
... became a belief in the efficacy of violence and direct action."13
According to Emmet
O'Connor, syndicalism was less a strategy than a mood, an "exaltation of will
over reason," an "anti-intellectual and anti-rational" trend in the labour movement
that infused an "irrational impulse ... into industrial unrest."14
Further, given that
the sentiments of the Revolt against Reason later found their key expression in Italian
fascism, and given that Sorel later associated with the far Right, while Labriola
became an outright fascist, the identification of syndicalism and Sorel lends itself to
the thesis that syndicalism had close links to Italian fascism—a claim that will be
dealt with separately below.
The notion that Sorel was the "leading theorist" of syndicalism was assiduously
promoted by the man himself, but is nonetheless quite baseless.15
Sorel was
essentially a commentator on the syndicalist movement from outside, one who,
moreover, tended to see his own convictions—such as an opposition to rationalism,
a hostility toward democracy, and the belief in the power of myth and violence—in
Anarchism, Syndicalism, the IWW, and Labour ... 151
the CGT. His actual influence on the syndicalist movement was negligible. As far
back as 1914, Levine argued that the notion that Sorel was the leader of syndicalism
"is a myth' and should be discarded," noting that Sorel and his circle did not
develop the basic ideas of syndicalism or act as spokespersons for the CGT; they
were "no more than a group of writers ... watching the syndicalist movement from
the outside ... stimulated by it," but whose ideas were often at odds with those of
the syndicalists.16
The syndicalists agreed. Sorel and his followers, argued Rocker, "never belonged
to the movement itself, nor had they any mentionable influence on its internal
development."17
Syndicalism "existed and lived among the workers long before"
Sorel and others wrote about it," Goldman observed.18
Her point is important. Sorels
interest in syndicalism in the early twentieth century came nearly ten years after the
start of the rise of French syndicalism and therefore he can hardly be described as
the movement s "theorist." The key biography of Sorel supports these claims: SoreFs
outline of syndicalist doctrine was unoriginal, his reflections on syndicalism were
a "response" to an existing movement, his influence was "negligible," and his support
for syndicalism lasted only from around 1905 to 1909, at which time he moved
to the far Right.19
It is, moreover, "impossible to show a direct link between the
militants of the French labour movement and the philosophers of the Revolt against
Reason": "Sorel had no contact with the labour movement," never set foot in the
CGT offices, "played no part, however small, in its affairs," and had "fundamental
differences" with the CGT unionists.20
"Sorel speculated on the syndicalist movement from outside, elaborating ideas
that syndicalist militants would not have endorsed even had they been fully familiar
with them."21
Sorel had no "appreciable attention in France, let alone a following."22
It would have been difficult to find syndicalist militants who preferred to "regenerate
decadent bourgeois society" rather than destroy it, or who regarded the general
strike as nothing but a heroic myth. He "had no direct connection with the syndicalist
movement, whose ideas were evolved independently of and, indeed, before the
appearance of Sorel, and the real syndicalists certainly did not support his mythical
interpretation of syndicalism."23
Despite suggesting that Sorel was the "theorist" of
syndicalism, even Joll admitted that "Sorel was not... launching a new strategy for
the working classes ... but rather trying to fit what they were already doing into his
own highly personal, subjective and romantic view of society."
24
Sorel was indeed
far closer to the extreme Right than to the syndicalists. To these points it might be
added that the Revolt against Reason was largely confined to academic and artistic
circles, and had a negligible impact on the broad socialist movement, and even less
on organised labour.
The distance between Sorel, Labriola, and the Revolt against Reason, on the
one hand, and syndicalism, on the other, removes much of the basis for claims that
there was some sort of special affinity between fascism and syndicalism. Nevertheless,
because of the assertions positing such a connection—which are made mainly
by reference to Italy and the archetypal fascist movement of Mussolini—it is necessary
to sketch out some historical background. A syndicalist current emerged in
the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and its affiliated General Confederation of Labour
(CGL, later the Italian General Confederation of Labour, CGIL) in the early twen-
152 ... Black Flame
tieth century. It formed a National Resistance Committee in 1907, which was expelled
in 1908. Placed under severe pressure in the CGL, the syndicalists broke away
en bloc to form the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI) in 1912. When the First World
War started, it became clear that a militantly nationalist and militarist faction had
emerged in the USI, which adopted a prowar position; associated with Labriola, this
minority was driven out by the USI, formed the Italian Labour Union (UIL) in 1915,
and eventually linked up with Mussolini, who represented a similar breakaway from
the PSI.
These developments have suggested to some writers that there was a close
connection between syndicalism and fascism. Bertrand identifies Italian syndicalism
with the UIL (as opposed to the USI, which he describes as anarchist).25
Likewise,
O'Connor alleges that Italian syndicalism laid "a theoretical basis for post-war
fascism," drawing on the work of A. James Gregor, and David Roberts, who stress
the UIL link to the later Fascist movement and the influence of Sorel on Mussolini.26
Another writer on Italian anarchism maintains that there were "syndicalist intellectuals"
influenced by Sorel and his cothinkers who "helped to generate, or sympathetically
endorsed" the emerging Fascist movement, sharing its "populist and
republican rhetoric."27
Such arguments are not convincing. The critical point is that the UIL group
had broken with the basic politics of syndicalism with its embrace of nationalism
and militarism. Moreover, the prowar section of the USI was a minority, and was
roundly defeated and expelled at a special USI congress in September 1914, in line
with the victorious antiwar resolution put forward by Armando Borghi.28
Born in
Castel Bolognese, he became an anarchist militant at age sixteen, moved to Bologna
in 1900, was arrested repeatedly for antimilitarist and anarchist work as well as propaganda,
and edited VAurora ("The Dawn").29
In 1907, he became a union activist,
was part of this syndicalist current in the CGL and PSI, went into exile in 1911, and
returned in 1912, joining the USI. Active in antimilitarist work and the Red Week
of 1914, a popular uprising, he led the struggle against the UIL tendency, became
the USI secretary, and directed the union paper Guerra di classe ("Class War"). In
1920, he visited the USSR (missing the 1920 Italian factory occupation movement)
and was singularly unimpressed by Lenin. Jailed with Malatesta and others later that
year, he left Italy with the Fascist takeover in 1922 for France and then the United
States, returning in the 1940s and 1950s to Italy, where he helped produce the revived
Umanita Nova ("New Humanity"). He died in 1968.
It was people of the calibre and convictions of Borghi, not nationalists like
Labriola, who represented Italian syndicalism. Furthermore, rather than enjoying
close link with Fascists, the "anarchists probably suffered greater violence proportionate
to their numbers than other political opponents of fascism," and Fascist
squads played a central role in the destruction of the syndicalist unions in Italy.30
"It
is no coincidence," notes a recent study, "that the strongest working class resistance
to Fascism was in ... towns or cities in which there was a strong anarchist, syndicalist
or anarcho-syndicalist tradition."31
In 1922, the USI helped organise a general
strike to try to halt the Fascist takeover in Italy and was involved in great street
battles against fascist paramilitaries in Parma in August that year. Banned in 1926,
Anarchism, Syndicalism, the IWW, and Labour ... 153
the underground USI and other anarchist groups, such as the Galleanists, continued
to wage a bitter struggle against the dictatorship.