The ``statesman''
whom office does not render positively nefarious
is at best an expensive superfluity.
Syndicalists have had many violent encounters
with the forces of government. In 1907 and 1908,
protesting against bloodshed which had occurred in
the suppression of strikes, the Committee of the C.
G. T. issued manifestoes speaking of the Government
as ``a Government of assassins'' and alluding
to the Prime Minister as ``Clemenceau the murderer.''
Similar events in the strike at Villeneuve St. Georges
in 1908 led to the arrest of all the leading members
of the Committee. In the railway strike of October,
1910, Monsieur Briand arrested the Strike Committee,
mobilized the railway men and sent soldiers
to replace strikers. As a result of these vigorous
measures the strike was completely defeated, and
after this the chief energy of the C. G. T. was directed
against militarism and nationalism.
The attitude of Anarchism to the Syndicalist
movement is sympathetic, with the reservation that
such methods as the General Strike are not to be
regarded as substitutes for the violent revolution
which most Anarchists consider necessary. Their
attitude in this matter was defined at the International
Anarchist Congress held in Amsterdam in
August, 1907.
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