groups over the question of organization and control, we have a significant demonstration of the inadequacy of that Marxian analysis which resolves all social conflict into the antagonism of economic classes. More profound than that antagonism, and in the order of time more ancient, is the unending warfare between those who believe in law and government for all, and those who believe in law and government for none. The more or less paradoxical character of the socialistic movement at the present moment is attributable to the circumstance that, for the time being, these antagonistic forces of socialism and anarchism are confronting a common enemy—the individualist, who believes in law and government for everybody but himself.

To describe, explain and estimate a phenomenon so complex as modern revolutionary syndicalism is a task from which the economist and the historian alike might well shrink. To understand it and to enable readers to understand it is an achievement. I think that I am not speaking in terms of exaggeration in saying that Dr. Levine has been more successful in this arduous undertaking than any predecessor. His pages tell us in a clear and dispassionate way what revolutionary syndicalism is, how it began, and how it has grown, what its informing ideas and purposes are, and by what methods it is forcing itself upon the serious attention of the civilized world. I think that it is a book which no student of affairs can afford to overlook, or to read in any other spirit than that of a sincere desire to know what account of the most profound social disturbance of our time is offered by a competent reporter of the facts.

Franklin H. Giddings.

Columbia University.

CHAPTER I

The Labor Movement in France to the Commune (1789-1871)

The economic legislation of the French Revolution was guided by individualistic ideas which expressed the interests of the rising middle classes who felt a necessity of removing the obstacles in the way of economic initiative and of personal effort. These interests and ideas dictated the law of March 2-17, 1791, which abolished the guilds and inaugurated the era of competition in France (Liberté du Travail). The law declared that henceforth everybody was “free to do such business, exercise such profession, art, or trade, as he may choose.”[2]

The abolition of the guilds cleared the way for the technical changes that had just begun and the development of which was yet in the future. These changes may be summarized as the application of science to industry and the introduction of machinery. The process went on in France irregularly, affecting different industries and different localities in various degrees. The first machine (machine à vapeur) was introduced in France about 1815; in 1830 there were about 600 in operation. Some idea of the later changes may be gained from the following table giving the number of machines in France from 1839 to 1907:

The introduction of machinery meant the absorption of a larger part of the population in industry, the concentration of industry in a smaller number of establishments and the absolute and relative increase in the numbers of the working population of France.

This class of the population was regulated in its economic action for nearly a century by another law passed June 14-17, 1791, and known by the name of its author as the law Le Chapelier. The law Le Chapelier, though dictated by the same general interests and ideas as the law on the guilds, was made necessary by special circumstances.

The abolition of the guilds had as one of its effects an agitation among the journeymen for higher wages and for better conditions of employment. During the summer of 1791, Paris was the scene of large meetings of journeymen, at which matters of work and wages were discussed. The movement spread from trade to trade, but the struggle was particularly acute in the building trades. Profiting by the law of August 21, 1790, which gave all citizens the “right to assemble peacefully and to form among themselves free associations subject only to the laws which all citizens must obey,”[4] the carpenters formed L'Union fraternelle des ouvriers en l'art de la charpente, an association ostensibly for benevolent purposes only, but which in reality helped the carpenters in their struggle with their masters. The masters repeatedly petitioned the municipality of Paris to put an end to the “disorders,” and to the “tyranny” of the journeymen. The masters complained that a general coalition of 80,000 workingmen had been formed in the capital and that the agitation was spreading to the provincial towns.[5] The municipal authorities tried to meet the situation, but their “notices” and “decrees” had no effect. They then appealed to the Constituent Assembly for a general law on associations and combinations. The result was the law Le Chapelier.

The report by which the bill was introduced brought out very clearly the individualistic ideas by which the legislators of the Revolution were inspired. “Citizens of certain trades,” read this report, “must not be permitted to assemble for their pretended common interests. There is no longer any corporation (guild) in the State; there is but the particular interest of each individual and the general interest....” And further, “It is necessary to abide by the principle that only by free contracts, between individual and individual, may the workday for each workingman be fixed; it is then for the workingman to maintain the agreement which he had made with his employer.”[6]

The law identified the new combinations with the ancient guilds. Its first clause declared that “whereas the abolition of all kinds of corporations of