Successful Anarcho-Syndicalism

[napoleon IV]

IOTL Anarcho-Syndicalism was a major strain of leftist ideology in the 1910s-1930s. There were several very large anarcho-syndicalist organizations during this time, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (150,000 members at it's peak in 1917), the Italian Syndicalist Union (500,000 members in 1922), and the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo in Spain (700,000 members in 1919). Anarcho-Syndicalists were also behind several revolutionary projects, including the Biennio Rosso in Italy and most famously the Spanish Revolution in Catalonia.

Anarcho-Syndicalism could have been the dominate leftist ideology, but during the 1920s and 1930s things fell apart. The success of the Bolshevik Revolution caused many leftists and workers to turn to Communism, while the Fascists in Italy and Spain broke up the anarcho-syndicalist unions there, which never fully recovered. I can think of a couple ways for anarcho-syndicalism to be successful:

1. The Biennio Rosso expands to southern Italy, and becomes a successful revolution.

2. The Republicans succeed in the Spanish Civil War.

3. The Kronstadt Rebellion succeeds in overthrowing the Bolsheviks (the de facto leader of the rebels, Stepan Petrichenko, was an anarcho-syndicalist). Even if this doesn't result in an anarcho-syndicalist Russia the failure of the Bolshevik Revolution would hurt Communism and stop the movement away from anarcho-syndicalism.

What would the effects of having a successful anarcho-syndicalist movement be? How would having anarcho-syndicalist "states" change the international order, and how would the capitalist world respond?

 

[d32123]

Left ideologies are not in competition with one another. Under normal circumstances, when one strain does well, it helps all other strains gain support as well because ultimately there are more than enough workers to go around! Anarcho-syndicalism experienced its height of success BECAUSE of the Bolshevik Revolution (as well as all of the other successful working class movements of the time period), not in spite of it. The success of socialist movements of all strands helped boost each other and when we started getting crushed we all suffered. To believe otherwise is to embrace sectarian nonsense.

 

[Warthog]

There is certainly an Overton Window argument to be made

The broader question, though, is what if anarcho-syndicalist states emerged - and one example would be that the left in state power would not be limited to the false binary of Western European social-democracy vs Stalinism

 

[LSCatilina]

I wonder if preventing the rise of French social-democracy (maybe if their various groups and tendencies never really unify, wheater marxists, guesdists, social-republicans, etc.), let's say that "Ordre Moral" is maintained for whatever reasons, preventing legal presence, wouldn't allow an even more influential Anarcho-Syndicalist tendency (cf. Charte d'Amiens) to blossom and fill the void in XXth France. Not necessarily replacing it entierely, but enough to be a strong tendency comparable to 20's/30's communism in the country?

 

[neonduke]

"Leninism? Never heard of it"