Sabotage is the practice of doing bad work, or spoiling machinery or work which has already been done, as a method of dealing with employers in a dispute when a strike appears for some reason undesirable or impossible.It has many forms, some clearly innocent, some open to grave objections.One form of sabotage which has been adopted by shop assistants is to tell customers the truth about the articles they are buying; this form, however it may damage the shopkeeper's business, is not easy to object to on moral grounds.A form which has been adopted on railways, particularly in Italian strikes, is that of obeying all rules literally and exactly, in such a way as to make the running of trains practically impossible.Another form is to do all the work with minute care, so that in the end it is better done, but the output is small.From these innocent forms there is a continual progression, until we come to such acts as all ordinary morality would consider criminal; for example, causing railway accidents.Advocates of sabotage justify it as part of war, but in its more violent forms (in which it is seldom defended) it is cruel and probably inexpedient, while even in its milder forms it must tend to encourage slovenly habits of work, which might easily persist under the new regime that the Syndicalists wish to introduce.At the same time, when capitalists express a moral horror of this method, it is worth while to observe that theythemselves are the first to practice it when the occasion seems to them appropriate.If report speaks truly, an example of this on a very large scale has been seen during the Russian Revolution.
By far the most important of the Syndicalist methods is the strike.Ordinary strikes, for specific objects, are regarded as rehearsals, as a means of perfecting organization and promoting enthusiasm, but even when they are victorious so far as concerns the specific point in dispute, they are not regarded by Syndicalists as affording any ground for industrial peace.Syndicalists aim at using the strike, not to secure such improvements of detail as employers may grant, but to destroy the whole system of employer and employed and win the complete emancipation of the worker.For this purpose what is wanted is the General Strike, the complete cessation of work by a sufficient proportion of the wage-earners to secure the paralysis of capitalism.Sorel, who represents Syndicalism too much in the minds of the reading public, suggests that the General Strike is to be regarded as a myth, like the Second Coming in Christian doctrine.But this view by no means suits the active Syndicalists.If they were brought to believe that the General Strike is a mere myth, their energy would flag, and their whole outlook would become disillusioned.It is the actual, vivid belief in its possibility which inspires them.They are much criticised for this belief by the political Socialists who consider that the battle is to be won by obtaining a Parliamentary majority.But Syndicalists have too little faith in the honesty of politicians to place any reliance on such a method or to believe in the value of any revolution which leaves the power of the State intact.
Syndicalist aims are somewhat less definite than Syndicalist methods.The intellectuals who endeavor to interpret them--not always very faithfully-- represent them as a party of movement and change, following a Bergsonian elan vital, without needing any very clear prevision of the goal to which it is to take them.Nevertheless, the negative part, at any rate, of their objects is sufficiently clear.
They wish to destroy the State, which they regard as a capitalist institution, designed essentially to terrorize the workers.They refuse to believe that it would be any better under State Socialism.They desire tosee each industry self-governing, but as to the means of adjusting the relations between different industries, they are not very clear.They are anti-militarist because they are anti-State, and because French troops have often been employed against them in strikes; also because they are internationalists, who believe that the sole interest of the working man everywhere is to free himself from the tyranny of the capitalist.Their outlook on life is the very reverse of pacifist, but they oppose wars between States on the ground that these are not fought for objects that in any way concern the workers.Their anti-militarism, more than anything else, brought them into conflict with the authorities in the years preceding the war.But, as was to be expected, it did not survive the actual invasion of France.
The doctrines of Syndicalism may be illustrated by an article introducing it to English readers in the first number of ``The Syndicalist Railwayman,'' September, 1911, from which the following is quoted:--``All Syndicalism, Collectivism, Anarchism aims at abolishing the present economic status and existing private ownership of most things; but while Collectivism would substitute ownership by everybody, and Anarchism ownership by nobody, Syndicalism aims at ownership by Organized Labor.It is thus a purely Trade Union reading of the economic doctrine and the class war preached by Socialism.It vehemently repudiates Parliamentary action on which Collectivism relies; and it is, in this respect, much more closely allied to Anarchism, from which, indeed, it differs in practice only in being more limited in range of action.'' (Times, Aug.25, 1911).
In truth, so thin is the partition between Syndicalism and Anarchism that the newer and less familiar ``ism'' has been shrewdly defined as``Organized Anarchy.'' It has been created by the Trade Unions of France; but it is obviously an international plant, whose roots have already found the soil of Britain most congenial to its growth and fructification.
