Fascist syndicalism was an Italian trade syndicate movement ( means trade union in French) that rose out of the pre-World War II provenance of the revolutionary syndicalist movement led mostly by Edmondo Rossoni, Sergio Panunzio, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, Michele Bianchi, Alceste De Ambris, Paolo Orano, Massimo Rocca, and Guido Pighetti, under the influence of Georges Sorel,A. James Gregor, Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship, Princeton University Press, 1979, p.172 who was considered the "'metaphysician' of syndicalism".Jeremy Jennings, Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990, p. 1
The fascist syndicalists differed from other forms of fascism in that they generally favored class struggle, worker-controlled factories and hostility to industrialists, which lead historians to portray them as "leftist fascist idealists" who "differed radically from right fascists."David D. Roberts, The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism, University of North Carolina Press, 1979 p. 252 Generally considered one of the more radical fascist syndicalists in Italy, Rossoni was the "leading exponent of fascist syndicalism",Jabbari, Pierre, Laroque and the Welfare State in Postwar France, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 45 and sought to infuse nationalism with "class struggle".Franklin Hugh Adler, Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism: The Political Development of the Industrial Bourgeoisie, 1906–1934, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 311 It is related to national syndicalism.
Revolutionary syndicalism to national syndicalism
Sometimes considered the "father" of revolutionary syndicalism or at least "the leading figure amongst the French Syndicalists",Spencer M. Di Scala, Emilio Gentile, edits., Mussolini 1883-1915: Triumph and Transformation of a Revolutionary Socialist, New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, Chap. 5, Marco Gervasoni, "Mussolini and Revolutionary Syndicalism," p. 131James Ramsay McDonald, Syndicalism: A Critical Examination, London, UK, Constable & Co. Ltd., 1912, p. 7 Georges Sorel supported militant trade unionism to combat the corrupting influences of parliamentary parties and politics, even if the legislators were distinctly socialist. As a French Marxist who supported Lenin, Bolshevism and Mussolini concurrently in the early 1920s,"For Lenin," Soviet Russia, Official Organ of The Russian Soviet Government Bureau, Vol. II, New York: NY, January–June 1920 (April 10, 1920), p. 356Jacob L. Talmon, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, University of California Press (1981) p. 451. Sorel's March 1921 conversations with Jean Variot, published in Variot's Propos de Georges Sorel, (1935) Paris, pp. 53-57, 66-86 passim Sorel promoted the cause of the proletariat in class struggle, and the "catastrophic polarization" that would arise through social myth-making of general strikes.Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 76 The intention of syndicalism was to organize strikes to abolish capitalism; not to supplant it with state socialism, but rather to build a society of worker-class producers. This Sorel regarded as "truly true" Marxism.Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, edited and intro by Jeremy Jennings, Cambridge Texts of the History of Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. ix
In his 1908 book, Reflections on Violence, Sorel provided the justification for syndicats as an effort to organize workers in violent uprisings, to convince workers not to be ashamed of acts of violence, and that they should be scornful of "politics, the Republic and patriotism".Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, edited and intro by Jeremy Jennings, Cambridge Texts of the History of Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 35, p. viii, In this Sorelian sense, the violence associated with Marxist class struggle, could be interpreted as fine, heroic and in the service of the "immemorial interest of civilization".Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, Free Press, 1950, p. 113 Many European socialists joined the ranks of the revolutionary syndicalists, including Benito Mussolini, who claimed that he had succumbed to revolutionary syndicalism by 1904, citing that it occurred during a general strike, although he had been involved with syndicalism earlier.Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 33
By 1909, Sorel became disappointed over the compromising policies of socialist parliamentarians, the movement towards democratic socialism and the decadence of the proletariat who were seduced by the "mirage of enormous economic benefits".Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 77-78 In Sorel's opinion, the proletariat was neither responding to his expectations of revolutionary change nor the dreams of Marx's "magnificent epic".Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 77. This reassessment of Marxism led Sorel to adopt Benedetto Croce's aphorism that "Socialism is dead."John L. Stanley, editor with introduction, From Georges Sorel: Essays in Socialism & Philosophy, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 1976, Georges Sorel, chap. 7, "Materials for a Theory of the Proletariat," p. 227. Materials for a Theory of the Proletariat was originally published as a book in 1919, Paris: Rivière During this period, many of Sorel's criticisms and writings about socialism were in response to the profound "crisis of Marxism",Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe, Yale University Press, 2011, p. 96 where he, according to Antonio Labriola, expounds on it with gusto and converted this "crisis into one of socialism."Antonio Labriola, Socialism and Philosophy, Chicago, IL, Charles H. Keer & Company, 1907, p. 179
To Sorel, the integrity and intellectualism of Marxism was decomposing, and the "heroic proletariat" appeared to have been either non-existent or shown to be as "much corrupted by utilitarianism as the bourgeoisie." According to Sorel, the power of democratic-republican governments was debasing the revolutionary initiative of the worker class which forced him to search for other alternatives, including a nationalism, but one devoid of any monarchism.Jeremy Jennings, Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990, p. 105 In order to resolve this crisis of socialism, Sorel turned toward an anti-democratic socialism that encompasses a radical nationalism, while still holding to his support of worker-owned factories, but under a heretic Marxism divested of its "materialistic and rationalistic essence".
In 1909, Sorel published an article in Enrico Leone's Il Divenire sociale, an influential journal of revolutionary syndicalism in Italy, which was later reprinted and championed by Charles Maurras in the L'Action française entitled "Antiparliamentary Socialist".Jeremy Jennings, Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990, pp. 104-105Georges Sorel, "Socialistes antiparlementaires, Un article de M. Georges Sorel," L'Action Francaise, Aug. 22, 1909 Sorel was not the first to drift towards nationalism and syndicalism. During the years of 1902 to 1910 a cadre of Italian revolutionary syndicalists had embarked on a mission to combine Italian nationalism with syndicalism. They were later to become "founders of the Fascist movement", and "held key posts" in Mussolini's regime. Generally, Italian syndicalism finally coalesced into national syndicalism during World War I and the months following the 1918 armistice.
Maurras welcomed Sorel's support in that they both were concerned over French socialism reaching the path of no return in its rush towards "democratization", coalescing into a formidable Social Democracy movement.Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 82 To Maurras, the purity of socialism had to abstain from being captured by seduction of democracy,Charles Maurras, L'Action française, Nov. 15, 1900, p. 863 declaring that "socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well made glove fits a beautiful hand."Douglas R. Holmes, Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism, Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 60 But such thoughts were not unusual for many European socialists during this period, such as Philippe Buchez and Ferdinand Lassalle who "despised democracy and exalted the nation."François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century, University of Chicago Press (1999) p. 164 Due to his aversion to democracy, Sorel and the syndicalists rejected political parties and democratic institutions as well as the "Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat",Charles F. Delzell, edit., Mediterranean Fascism 1919-1945, New York, NY, Walker and Company, 1971, p. 107 but remained dutiful to Karl Marx's opposition to democracy and elections. Earlier, Marx had confessed that his revolutionary activities in the Revolution of 1848 was "nothing but a plan of war against democracy."Karl Marx: Letter to Engels, July 13, 1851. Leopold Schwarzschild, Karl Marx: The Red Prussian, New York: NY, The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, 1947, p. 171, pp. 187-188
In an attempt to save Marxism, Sorel gravitated towards the creation of a synthesis of populism and nationalism that also included "the crudest of anti-Semitism".Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 79-80 By this time, Sorel and other syndicalists concluded that proletarian violence was ineffectual since the "proletariat was incapable of fulfilling its revolutionary role,"Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 80-81 an assessment that persuaded many to see the nation-state as the best means by which to establish a proletarian-based society, which later congealed into the fascist concept of proletarian nationalism.Jacob Talmon, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press, 1981, p. 484