Syndicalism

Syndicalism (French: syndicate, “labor union”), revolutionary labor movement that aimed at seizing control of industry through strikes, sabotage, even violence, and, as its ultimate weapon, the general strike. It originated in late-19th-century France from the theories of Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Georges Sorel. Syndicalists agreed with Marxist class analysis but like anarchists rejected any state organization. Syndicalism was strong in France and Italy in the early 1900s and found U.S. expression in the industrial unionism of the Industrial Workers of the World. World War I and the advance of communism overtook the syndicalists; their influence lasted longest in Spain, where it was destroyed in the civil war (1936–39).

See also: Labor movement.