Anarcho-syndicalism (as mentioned in section A.3.2) is a form of anarchism which applies itself (primarily) to creating industrial unions organised in an anarchist manner, using anarchist tactics (such as direct action) to create a free society. Or, in the words of the International Workers' Association:

"Revolutionary Syndicalism basing itself on the class-war, aims at the union of all manual and intellectual workers in economic fighting organisations struggling for their emancipation from the yoke of wage slavery and from the oppression of the State. Its goal consists in the re-organisation of social life on the basis of free Communism, by means of the revolutionary action of the working-class itself. It considers that the economic organisations of the proletariat are alone capable of realising this aim, and, in consequence, its appeal is addressed to workers in their capacity of producers and creators of social riches, in opposition to the modern political labour parties which can never be considered at all from the points of view of economic re-organisation." [The Principles of Revolutionary Syndicalism, point 1]

The word "syndicalism" is basically an English rendering of the French for "revolutionary trade unionism" ("syndicalisme revolutionarie"). In the 1890s many anarchists in France started to work within the trade union movement, radicalising it from within. As the ideas of autonomy, direct action, the general strike and political independence of unions which where associated with the French Confederation Generale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) spread across the world (partly through anarchist contacts, partly through word of mouth by non-anarchists who were impressed by the militancy of the CGT), the word "syndicalism" was used to describe movements inspired by the example of the CGT. Thus "syndicalism," "revolutionary syndicalism" and "anarcho-syndicalism" all basically mean "revolutionary unionism" (the term "industrial unionism" used by the IWW essentially means the same thing).

The main difference is between revolutionary syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism, with anarcho-syndicalism arguing that revolutionary syndicalism concentrates too much on the workplace and, obviously, stressing the anarchist roots and nature of syndicalism more than revolutionary syndicalism. In addition, particularly in France, anarcho-syndicalism is considered compatible with supporting a specific anarchist organisation to complement the work of the revolutionary unions. Revolutionary syndicalism, in contrast, argues that the syndicalist unions are sufficient in themselves to create libertarian socialism and rejects anarchist groups along with political parties. However, the dividing line can be unclear (and, just to complicate things even more, some syndicalists support political parties and are not anarchists — there have been a few Marxist syndicalists, for example. We will ignore these syndicalists in our discussion and concentrate on the libertarian syndicalists). We will use the term syndicalism to describe what each branch has in common.

Syndicalism is different from ordinary trade unionism (sometimes called business unionism by anarchists and syndicalists as it treats the union's job purely as the seller of its members labour power and acts like any other business). Syndicalism, in contrast with trade unionism, is based on unions managed directly by the rank and file membership rather than by elected officials and bureaucrats. The syndicalist union is not based on where the worker lives (as is the case with many trade unions). Instead, the union is based and run from the workplace. It is there that union meetings are held, where workers are exploited and oppressed and where their economic power lies. Syndicalism is based on local branch autonomy, with each branch having the power to call and end strikes and organise its own affairs. No union officials have the power to declare strikes "unofficial" as every strike decided upon by the membership is automatically "official" simply because the branch decided it in a mass meeting. Power would be decentralised into the hands of the union membership, as expressed in local branch assemblies.

To co-ordinate strikes and other forms of action, these autonomous branches are part of a federal structure. The mass meeting in the workplace mandates delegates to express the wishes of the membership at "labour councils" and "industrial unions."

The labour council is the federation of all workplace branches of all industries in a geographical area (say, for example, in a city or region) and it has the tasks of, among other things, education, propaganda and the promotion of solidarity between the different union branches in its area. Due to the fact it combines all workers into one organisation, regardless of industry or union, the labour council plays a key role in increasing class consciousness and solidarity. This can be seen from both the Italian USI and the Spanish CNT, to take two examples. In the later case, the "territorial basis of organisation linkage brought all the workers from one area together and fomented working-class solidarity over and before corporate solidarity." [J. Romero Maura, "The Spanish Case", contained in Anarchism Today, D. Apter and J. Joll (eds.), p. 75] The example of the USI also indicates the validity of French syndicalist Fernand Pelloutier's passionate defence of the Bourse du Travail as a revolutionary force (see Carl Levy, "Italian Anarchism: 1870-1926" in For Anarchism, David Goodway (ed.), pp. 48-9).

The industrial union, on the other hand, is the federation of union branches within the same industry in a given area (there would be a coal miners industry wide union, a software workers industrial union and so on). These councils would organise industry wide struggles and solidarity. In this way workers in the same industry support each other, ensuring that if workers in one workplace goes on strike, the boss cannot swap production to another workplace elsewhere and so weaken and defeat the action (see Berkman's ABC of Anarchism, p. 54, for a fuller discussion of why such industrial unionism is essential to win strikes).

In practice, of course, the activities of these dual federations would overlap: labour councils would support an industry wide strike or action while industrial unions would support action conducted by its member unions called by labour councils. However, we must stress that both the industrial federations and the cross-industry (territorial) labour councils are "based on the principles of Federalism, on free combination from below upwards, putting the right of self-determination of every member above everything else and recognising only the organic agreement of all on the basis of like interests and common convictions." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 53]

As well as being decentralised and organised from the bottom up, the syndicalist union differs from the normal trade union by having no full-time officials. All union business is conducted by elected fellow workers who do their union activities after work or, if it has to be done during work hours, they get the wages they lost while on union business. In this way no bureaucracy of well paid officials is created and all union militants remain in direct contact with their fellow workers. Given that it is their wages, working conditions and so on that are effected by their union activity they have a real interest in making the union an effective organisation and ensuring that it reflects the interests of the rank and file. In addition, all part-time union "officials" are elected, mandated and recallable delegates. If the fellow worker who is elected to the local labour council or other union committee is not reflecting the opinions of those who mandated him or her then the union assembly can countermand their decision, recall them and replace them with someone who will reflect the decisions of the union.

The syndicalist union is committed to direct action and refuses links with political parties, even labour or "socialist" ones. A key idea of syndicalism is that of union autonomy — the idea that the workers' organisation is capable of changing society by its own efforts and that it must control its own fate and not be controlled by any party or other outside group (including anarchist federations). This is sometimes termed "workerism" (from the French "ouverierisme"), i.e. workers' control of the class struggle and their own organisations. Rather than being a cross-class organisation like the political party, the union is a class organisation and is so uniquely capable of representing working class aspirations, interests and hopes. There is "no place in it for anybody who was not a worker. Professional middle class intellectuals who provided both the leadership and the ideas of the socialist political movement, were therefore at a discount. As a consequence the syndicalist movement was, and saw itself as, a purely working class form of socialism . . . [S]yndicalism appears as the great heroic movement of the proletariat, the first movement which took seriously . . . [the argument] that the emancipation of the working class must be the task of labour unaided by middle class intellectuals or by politicians and aimed to establish a genuinely working class socialism and culture, free of all bourgeois taints. For the syndicalists, the workers were to be everything, the rest, nothing." [Geoffrey Ostergaard, The Tradition of Workers' Control, p. 38]

Therefore syndicalism is "consciously anti-parliamentary and anti-political. It focuses not only on the realities of power but also on the key problem of achieving its disintegration. Real power in syndicalist doctrine is economic power. The way to dissolve economic power is to make every worker powerful, thereby eliminating power as a social privilege. Syndicalism thus ruptures all the ties between the workers and the state. It opposes political action, political parties, and any participant in political elections. Indeed it refuses to operate in the framework of the established order and the state . . . .[S]yndicalism turns to direct action — strikes, sabotage, obstruction, and above all, the revolutionary general strike. Direct action not only perpetuates the militancy of the workers and keeps alive the spirit of revolt, but awakens in them a greater sense of individual initiative. By continual pressure, direct action tests the strength of the capitalist system at all times and presumably in its most important arena — the factory, where ruled and ruler seem to confront each other most directly." [Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists, p. 121]

This does not mean that syndicalism is "apolitical" in the sense of ignoring totally all political issues. This is a Marxist myth. Syndicalists follow other anarchists by being opposed to all forms of authoritarian/capitalist politics but do take a keen interest in "political" questions as they relate to the interests of working people. Thus they do not "ignore" the state, or the role of the state. Indeed, syndicalists are well aware that the state exists to protect capitalist property and power. For example, the British syndicalists' "vigorous campaign against the 'servile state' certainly disproves the notion that syndicalists ignored the role of the state in society. On the contrary, their analysis of bureaucratic state capitalism helped to make considerable inroads into prevailing Labourist and state socialist assumptions that the existing state could be captured by electoral means and used as an agent of through-going social reform." [Bob Holton, British Syndicalism: 1900-1914, p. 204]

Indeed, Rudolf Rocker makes the point very clear. "It has often been charged against Anarcho-Syndicalism," he writes, "that it has no interest in the political structure of the different countries, and consequently no interest in the political struggles of the time, and confines its activities entirely to the fight for purely economic demands. This idea is altogether erroneous and springs either from outright ignorance or wilful distortion of the facts. It is not the political struggle as such which the Anarcho-Syndicalist from the modern labour parties, both in principle and tactics, but form of this struggle and the aims which it has in view. . . their efforts are also directed, even today, at restricting the activities of the state . . . The attitude of Anarcho-Syndicalism towards the political power of the present-day state is exactly the same as it takes towards the system of capitalist exploitation . . .[and] pursue the same tactics in their fight against . . . the state . . . [T]he worker cannot be indifferent to the economic conditions of life . . . so he cannot remain indifferent to the political structure of his [or her] country . . ." [Op. Cit., p.63]

Thus syndicalism is not indifferent to or ignores political struggles and issues. Rather, it fights for political change and reforms as it fights for economic ones — by direct action and solidarity. If revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalists "reject any participation in the works of bourgeois parliaments, it is not because they have no sympathy with political struggles in general, but because they are firmly convinced that parliamentary activity is for the workers the very weakest and most hopeless form of the political struggles." [Op. Cit., p. 65] Syndicalists (like other anarchists) argue that the political and the economic must be integrated and that integration must take place in working class organisations, which, for syndicalists, means their unions (or union-like organisations such as workplace councils or assemblies). Rather than being something other people discuss on behalf of working class people, syndicalists, again like all anarchists, argue that politics must no longer be in the hands of so-called experts (i.e. politicians) but instead lie in the hands of those directly affected by it. Also, in this way the union encourages the political development of its members by the process of participation and self-management.

In other words, political issues must be raised in economic and social organisations and discussed there, where working class people have real power. In this they follow Bakunin who argued that an "it would be absolutely impossible to ignore political and philosophical questions" and that an "exclusive preoccupation with economic questions would be fatal for the proletariat." Therefore, the unions must be open to all workers, be independent of all political parties and be based on economic solidarity with all workers, in all lands, but there must be "free discussion of all political and philosophical theories" "leaving the sections and federations to develop their own policies" since "political and philosophical questions . . . [must be] posed in the International . . . [by] the proletariat itself . . ." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 301, p. 302, p. 297, p. 302]

Thus revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalism are deeply political in the widest sense of the word, aiming for a radical change in political, economic and social conditions and institutions. Moreover, it is political in the narrower sense of being aware of political issues and aiming for political reforms along with economic ones. They are only "apolitical" when it comes to supporting political parties and using bourgeois political institutions, a position which is "political" in the wider sense of course! This is obviously identical to the usual anarchist position (see section J.2)

Which indicates another importance difference between syndicalism and trade unionism. Syndicalism aims at changing society rather than just working within it. Thus syndicalism is revolutionary while trade unionism is reformist. For syndicalists the union "has a double aim: with tireless persistence, it must pursue betterment of the working class's current conditions. But, without letting themselves become obsessed with this passing concern, the workers should take care to make possible and imminent the essential act of comprehensive emancipation: the expropriation of capital." [Emile Pouget, No Gods, No Masters, p. 71] Thus syndicalism aims to win reforms by direct action and by this struggle bring the possibilities of a revolution, via the general strike, closer. Indeed any "desired improvement is to be wrested directly from the capitalist. . . [and] must always represent a reduction in capitalist privileges and be a partial expropriation." [Op. Cit., p. 73] Thus Emma Goldman:

"Of course Syndicalism, like the old trade unions, fights for immediate gains, but it is not stupid enough to pretend that labour can expect humane conditions from inhumane economic arrangements in society. Thus it merely wrests from the enemy what it can force him to yield; on the whole, however, Syndicalism aims at, and concentrates its energies upon, the complete overthrow of the wage system.

"Syndicalism goes further: it aims to liberate labour from every institution that has not for its object the free development of production for the benefit of all humanity. In short, the ultimate purpose of Syndicalism is to reconstruct society from its present centralised, authoritative and brutal state to one based upon the free, federated grouping of the workers along lines of economic and social liberty.

"With this object in view, Syndicalism works in two directions: first, by undermining the existing institutions; secondly, by developing and educating the workers and cultivating their spirit of solidarity, to prepare them for a full, free life, when capitalism shall have been abolished. . .

"Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism..." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 68]

Which, in turn, explains why syndicalist unions are structured in such an obviously libertarian way. On the one hand, it reflects the importance of empowering every worker by creating a union which is decentralised and self-managed, a union which every member plays a key role in determining its policy and activities. Participation ensures that the union becomes a "school for the will" (to use Pouget's expression) and allows working people to learn how to govern themselves and so do without government and state. On the other hand, "[a]t the same time that syndicalism exerts this unrelenting pressure on capitalism, it tries to build the new social order within the old. The unions and the 'labour councils' are not merely means of struggle and instruments of social revolution; they are also the very structure around which to build a free society. The workers are to be educated [by their own activity within the union] in the job of destroying the old propertied order and in the task of reconstructing a stateless, libertarian society. The two go together." [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 121] The syndicalist union is seen as prefiguring the future society, a society which (like the union) is decentralised and self-managed in all aspects.

Thus, as can be seen, syndicalism differs from trade unionism in its structure, its methods and its aims. Its structure, method and aims are distinctly anarchist. Little wonder the leading syndicalist theorist Fernand Pelloutier argued that the trade union, "governing itself along anarchic lines," must become "a practical schooling in anarchism." [No Gods, No Masters, p. 55, p. 57] In addition, most anarcho-syndicalists support community organisations and struggle alongside the more traditional industry based approach usually associated within syndicalism. While we have concentrated on the industrial side here (simply because this is a key aspect of syndicalism) we must stress that syndicalism can and does lend itself to community struggles, so our comments have a wider application (for example, in the form of community unionism as a means to create community assemblies — see section J.5.1). It is a myth that anarcho-syndicalism ignores community struggles and organisation, as can be seen from the history of the Spanish CNT for example (the CNT helped organise rent strikes, for example).

It must be stressed that a syndicalist union is open to all workers regardless of their political opinions (or lack of them). The union exists to defend workers' interests as workers and is organised in an anarchist manner to ensure that their interests are fully expressed. This means that an syndicalist organisation is different from an organisation of syndicalists. What makes the union syndicalist is its structure, aims and methods. Obviously things can change (that is true of any organisation which has a democratic structure) but that is a test revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalists welcome and do not shirk from. As the union is self-managed from below up, its militancy and political content is determined by its membership. As Pouget put it, the union "offers employers a degree of resistance in geometric proportion with the resistance put up by its members." [Op. Cit., p. 71] That is why syndicalists ensure that power rests in the members of the union.

Syndicalists have two main approaches to building revolutionary unions — "dual unionism" and "boring from within." The former approach involves creating new, syndicalist, unions, in opposition to the existing trade unions. This approach was historically and is currently the favoured way of building syndicalist unions (American, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and numerous other syndicalists built their own union federations in the heyday of syndicalism between 1900 and 1920). "Boring from within" simply means working within the existing trade unions in order to reform them and make them syndicalist. This approach was favoured by French and British syndicalists, plus a few American ones. See also sections J.5.2 and J.5.3 for more on industrial unionism and anarchist perspectives on existing trades unions.

However, these two approaches are not totally in opposition. Many of the dual unions were created by syndicalists who had first worked within the existing trade unions. Once they got sick of the bureaucratic union machinery and of trying to reform it, they split from the reformist unions and formed new, revolutionary, ones. Similarly, dual unionists will happily support trade unionists in struggle and often be "two carders" (i.e. members of both the trade union and the syndicalist one). Rather than being isolated from the majority of trade unionists, supporters of dual unionism argue that they would be in contact with them where it counts, on the shop floor and in struggle rather than in trade union meetings which many workers do not even attend. Dual unionists argue that the trade unions, like the state, are too bureaucratic to be changed and that, therefore, trying to reform them is a waste of time and energy (and it is likely that rather than change the trade union, "boring from within" would more likely change the syndicalist by watering down their ideas).

However, syndicalists no matter what tactics they prefer, favour autonomous workplace organisations, controlled from below. Both tend to favour syndicalists forming networks of militants to spread anarchist/syndicalist ideas within the workplace. Indeed, such a network (usually called "Industrial Networks — see section J.5.4 for more details) would be an initial stage and essential means for creating syndicalist unions. These groups would encourage syndicalist tactics and rank and file organisation during struggles and so create the potential for building syndicalist unions as syndicalist ideas spread and are seen to work.

While the names "syndicalism" and "anarcho-syndicalism" date from the 1890s in France, the ideas associated with these names have a longer history. Anarcho-syndicalist ideas have developed independently in many different countries and times. As Rudolf Rocker notes, anarcho-syndicalism itself was "a direct continuation of those social aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First International and which were best understood and most strongly held by the libertarian wing of the great workers' alliance . . . Its theoretical assumptions are based on the teachings of Libertarian or Anarchist Socialism, while its form of organisation is largely borrowed from revolutionary Syndicalism." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 49] Indeed, anyone familiar with Bakunin's work will quickly see that much of his ideas prefigure what was latter to become known as syndicalism. Bakunin, for example, argued that the "organisation of the trade sections, their federation in the International, and their representation by the Chambers of Labour, not only create a great academy, in which the workers of the International, combining theory and practice, can and must study economic science, they also bear in themselves the living germs of the new social order, which is to replace the bourgeois world. They are creating not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself." [quoted by Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 45] Bakunin continually stressed that trade unions were the "only really efficacious weapons the workers now can use against" the bourgeoisie, as well as the importance of solidarity and the radicalising and empowering effect of strikes and the importance of the general strike as a means of "forc[ing] society to shed its old skin." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 153, p. 150]

(We must stress that we are not arguing that Bakunin "invented" syndicalism. Far from it. Rather, we are arguing that Bakunin expressed ideas already developed in working class circles and became, if you like, the "spokes-person" for these libertarian tendencies in the labour movement as well as helping to clarifying these ideas in many ways. As Emma Goldman argued, the "feature which distinguishes Syndicalism from most philosophies is that it represents the revolutionary philosophy of labour conceived and born in the actual struggle and experience of workers themselves — not in universities, colleges, libraries, or in the brain of some scientists." [Op. Cit., pp. 65-6] This applies equally to Bakunin and the first International).

Thus, rather than being some sort of revision of anarchism or some sort of "semi-Marxist" movement, syndicalism was, in fact, a reversion to the ideas of Bakunin and the anarchists in the first International (although, as we discuss in the next section, with some slight differences) after the disastrous experience of "propaganda by the deed" (see section A.2.18 and A.5.3). Given the utter nonsense usually written by Marxists (and liberals) about Bakunin, it is not hard to understand why Marxists fail to see the anarchist roots of syndicalism — not being aware of Bakunin's ideas, they think that anarchism and syndicalism are utterly different while, in fact, (to use Emma Goldman's words) syndicalism "is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism" and "under Bakunin and the Latin workers, [the International was] forging ahead along industrial and Syndicalist lines." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 68, p. 66] Similarly, we find that the American Black International (organised by anarchists in the 1880s) "anticipated by some twenty years the doctrine of anarcho-syndicalism" and "[m]ore than merely resembling the 'Chicago Idea' [of the Black International], the IWW's principles of industrial unionism resulted from the conscious efforts of anarchists . . . who continued to affirm . . . the principles which the Chicago anarchists gave their lives defending." [Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November, p. 51 and p. 79] Thus, ironically, many Marxists find themselves in the curious position of ascribing ideas and movements inspired by Bakunin to Marx!

Moreover, ideas similar to anarcho-syndicalism were also developed independently of the libertarian wing of the IWMA nearly 40 years previously in Britain. The idea that workers should organise into unions, use direct action and create a society based around the trade union federation had been developed within the early labour movement in Britain. The Grand National Consolidated Trade Union of Great Britain and Ireland had, as one expert on the early British Labour movement put it, a "vision [which] is an essentially syndicalist one of decentralised socialism in which trade unions. . . have acquired. . . the productive capacity to render themselves collectively self-sufficient as a class" and a union based "House of Trades" would replace the existing state [Noel Thompson, The Real Rights of Man, p.88]. This movement also developed Proudhon's ideas on mutual banks and labour notes decades before he put pen to paper. For an excellent history of this period, see E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class and for a fuller history of proto-syndicalism Rudolf Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism cannot be bettered.

Thus syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism (or anarchist-syndicalism) is revolutionary labour unionism. Its theoretical assumptions and organisation are based on the teachings of libertarian socialism (or Anarchism). Syndicalism combines the day-to-day struggle for reforms and improvements in working class life within the framework of existing capitalist society (reforms gained by direct action and considered as partial expropriations) with the long term aim of the overthrown of capitalism and statism. The aim of the union is workers' self-management of production and distribution after the revolution, a self-management which the union is based upon in the here and now.

Syndicalists think that such an organisation is essential for the successful creation of an anarchist society as it builds the new world in the shell of the old, making a sizeable majority of the population aware of anarchism and the benefits of anarchist forms of organisation and struggle. Moreover, they argue that those who reject syndicalism "because it believes in a permanent organisation of workers" and urge "workers to organise 'spontaneously' at the very moment of revolution" promote a "con-trick, designed to leave 'the revolutionary movement,' so called, in the hands of an educated class. . . [or] so-called 'revolutionary party'. . . [which] means that the workers are only expected to come in the fray when there's any fighting to be done, and in normal times leave theorising to the specialists or students." [Albert Meltzer, Anarchism: Arguments for and Against, p. 57] The syndicalist union is seen as a "school" for anarchism, "the germ of the Socialist economy of the future, the elementary school of Socialism in general. . . [we need to] plant these germs while there is yet time and bring them to the strongest possible development, so as to make the task of the coming social revolution easier and to insure its permanence." [Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 52] A self-managed society can only be created by self-managed means, and as only the practice of self-management can ensure its success, the need for libertarian popular organisations is essential. Syndicalism is seen as the key way working people can prepare themselves for revolution and learn to direct their own lives. In this way syndicalism creates, to use Bakunin's terms, a true politics of the people, one that does not create a parasitic class of politicians and bureaucrats ("We wish to emancipate ourselves, to free ourselves', Pelloutier wrote, 'but we do not wish to carry out a revolution, to risk our skin, to put Pierre the socialist in the place of Paul the radical").

This does not mean that syndicalists do not support organisations spontaneously created by workers' in struggle (such as workers' councils, factory committees and so on). Far from it. Anarcho-syndicalists and revolutionary syndicalists have played important parts in these kinds of organisation (as can be seen from the Russian Revolution, the factory occupations in Italy in 1920, the British Shop Steward movement and so on). This is because syndicalism acts as a catalyst to militant labour struggles and serves to counteract class-collaborationist tendencies by union bureaucrats and other labour fakirs. Part of this activity must involve encouraging self-managed organisations where none exist and so syndicalists support and encourage all such spontaneous movements, hoping that they turn into the basis of a syndicalist union movement or a successful revolution. Moreover, most anarcho-syndicalists recognise that it is unlikely that every worker, nor even the majority, will be in syndicalist unions before a revolutionary period starts. This means new organisations, created spontaneously by workers in struggle, would have to be the framework of social struggle and the post-capitalist society rather than the syndicalist union as such. All the syndicalist union can do is provide a practical example of how to organise in a libertarian way within capitalism and statism and provide part of the framework of the free society, along with other spontaneously created organisations.

Hence spontaneously created organisations of workers in struggle play an important role in revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalist theory. Since syndicalists advocate that it is the workers, using their own organisations who will control their own struggles (and, eventually, their own revolution) in their own interests, not a vanguard party of elite political theorists, this is unsurprising. It matters little if the specific organisations are revolutionary industrial unions, factory committees, workers councils', or other labour formations. The important thing is that they are created and run by workers themselves. Meanwhile, anarcho-syndicalists are industrial guerrillas waging class war at the point of production in order to win improvements in the here and now and strengthen tendencies towards anarchism by showing that direct action and libertarian organisation is effective and can win partial expropriations of capitalist and state power.

Lastly, we must point out here that while syndicalism has anarchist roots, not all syndicalists are anarchists. A few Marxists have been syndicalists, particularly in the USA where the followers of Daniel De Leon supported Industrial Unionism and helped form the Industrial Workers of the World. The Irish socialist James Connelly was also a Marxist-syndicalist, as was Big Bill Haywood a leader of the IWW and member of the US Socialist Party. Marxist-syndicalists are generally in favour of more centralisation within syndicalist unions (the IWW was by far the most centralised syndicalist union) and often argue that a political party is required to complement the work of the union. Needless to say, anarcho-syndicalists and revolutionary syndicalists disagree, arguing that centralisation kills the spirit of revolt and weakens a unions real strength [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 53] and that political parties divide labour organisations needlessly and are ineffective when compared to militant unionism [Op. Cit., p. 51] So not all syndicalists are anarchists and not all anarchists are syndicalists (we discuss the reasons for this in the next section). Those anarchists who are syndicalists often use the term "anarcho-syndicalism" to indicate that they are both anarchists and syndicalists and to stress the libertarian roots and syndicalism.

For more information on anarcho-syndicalist ideas, Rudolf Rocker's classic introduction to the subject, Anarcho-Syndicalism is a good starting place, as is the British syndicalist Tom Brown's Syndicalism. Daniel Guerin's No Gods, No Masters contains articles by leading syndicalist thinkers and is also a useful source of information.