Untitled

236 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
of this million, about 400,000 belong to the Confederation,
and, out of this number, it is doubtful if half are
in favor of a general strike. The proposition of Guerard
then presents itself as follows: that a minority of
organized men shall force not only the vast majority
of their fellow unionists but twenty times their number
of unorganized men to quit work in order to launch the
war for emancipation. Under the compulsion of 200,000
men, a nation of 40,000,000 is to be forced immediately,
without palaver or delay, to revolutionize society.
The next year, at Toulouse, the French unions again
assembled, and here it was that Pouget and Delesalle,
both anarchists, presented the report which outlined still
another war measure, that of sabotage. The newly arrived
was there baptized, and received by all,
says Pouget,
with warm enthusiasm. This sabotage was hardly
born before it, too, made a tour of the world, creating
everywhere the same furore of discussion that had been
aroused by syndicalism. It presents itself in such a multitude
of forms that it almost evades definition. If a
worker is
badly paid and returns bad work for bad pay,
he is a saboteur. If a strike is lost, and the workmen
return only to break the machines, spoil the products,
and generally disorganize a factory, they are saboteurs.
dissatisfied workman
The idea of sabotage is that any
shall undertake to break the machine or spoil the product
of the machines in order to render the conduct of industry
unprofitable, if not actually impossible. It may
from machine obstruction or destruc-
range all the way
tion to dynamiting, train wrecking, and arson. It may
be some petty form of malice, or it may extend to every
act advocated by our old friends, the terrorists.
The work of one other congress must be mentioned.
At Lyons (1901) it was decided that an inquiry should