Preface
Anarcho-syndicalism is a fundamental tendency in the global workers’ movement. It is made up of revolutionary unions of workers (“syndicat” in French means “trade union”), acting to bring about a stateless (anarchist), self-managed society.
Anarcho-syndicalism, the only mass variant of the anarchist movement in history, arose and acquired strength during a period of profound social, economic, and political changes—the first decades of the 20th century. In the countries which formed the “centre” of the global industrial-capitalist system, a transition to a developed industrial society was taking place, while on the “periphery” and “semi-periphery” the process of industrialization was still only getting started. The furious pace of social change often caused much suffering for the workers, forcing them to abandon traditional occupations and forms of life and pushing them into factories, frequently under onerous conditions. Former agricultural labourers were uprooted from their accustomed mode of life—conditioned by centuries—while skilled craftsmen experienced anguish when they were forced into narrowly specialized or unskilled work. The workers’ consciousness was scarred by the growing alienation and atomization of the human personality under the conditions of the rise of “mass society.”
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