power through organization. But in France the
very acts that result from weakness and despair have been greeted with
enthusiasm by the anarchists and the effete intellectuals as the
beginning of new and improved revolutionary methods.

Both, then, in their philosophy and in their methods, anarchism and
syndicalism have much in common, but there also exist certain
differences which cannot be overlooked. Anarchism is a doctrine of
individualism; syndicalism is a doctrine of working-class action.
Anarchism appeals only to the individual; syndicalism appeals also to a
class. Furthermore, anarchism is a remnant of eighteenth-century
philosophy, while syndicalism is a product of an immature factory
system. Marx and Engels frequently spoke of anarchism as a
petty-bourgeois philosophy, but in the early syndicalism of Robert Owen
they saw more than that, considering it as the forerunner of an actual
working-class movement. When these differences have been stated, there
is little more to be said, and, on the whole, Yvetot was justified in
saying at the congress of Toulouse (1910): "I am reproached with
confusing syndicalism and anarchism. It is not my fault if anarchism and
syndicalism have the same ends in view. The former pursues the integral
emancipation of the individual; the latter the integral emancipation of
the workingman. I find the whole of syndicalism in anarchism."[17] When
we leave the theories of syndicalism to study its methods, we find them
identical with those of the anarchists. The general strike is, after
all, exactly the same method that Bakounin was constantly advocating in
the days of the old International. The only difference is this, that
Bakounin sought the aid of "the people," while the syndicalists rely
upon the working class. Furthermore, when one places the statement of
Guerard on the general strike[Y] alongside of the statement of Kropotkin
on the revolution,[Z] one can observe no important difference.

While it is true that some syndicalists believe that the general strike
may be solely a peaceable abstention from work, most of them are
convinced that such a strike would surely meet with defeat. As Buisson
says: "If the general strike remains the revolution of folded arms, if
it does not degenerate into a violent insurrection, one cannot see how a
cessation of work of fifteen, thirty, or even sixty days could bring
into the industrial regime and into the present social system changes
great enough