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THE NEWEST ANARCHISM 241
if we finally take Tolstoi, we find here an anarchism of
worldly or aristocratic origin. Tolstoi is a blase aristocrat,
disgusted with civilization by having too much eaten
of it."
(11) Whether or not this characterization of Tolstoi
is justified, there can be no question that many of this
type rushed to the aid of syndicalism. Its savage vigor
appeals to some artists, decadents, and dcclasscs. Neurotic
as a rule, they seem to hunger for the stimulus which
comes by association with the merely physical power and
vigor of the working class. The navvy, the coalheaver,
or "yon rower the muscles all a-ripple on his back,"
. . .
(12) awakens in them a worshipful admiration, even as it
did in the effete Cleon. Such a theory as syndicalism,
declares Sombart, "could only have grown up in a country
possessing so high a culture as France that it could
;
have been thought out only by minds of the nicest perception,
by people who have become quite blase, whose
feelings require a very strong stimulus before they can
be stirred; people who have something of the artistic
temperament, and, consequently, look disdainfully on
what has been called 'Philistinism'— on business, on middle-class
ideals, and so forth. They are, as it were, the
fine silk as contrasted with the plain wool of ordinary
people. They detest the common, everyday round as
much as they hate what is natural ; they might be called
'Social Sybarites.' Such are the people who have created
the syndicalist system." (13) On one point Sombart is
wrong. All the essential doctrines of revolutionary syndicalism,
as a matter of fact, originated with the anarchists
in the unions, and the most that can be said
for
the "Sybarites"
is that they elaborated and mystified
these doctrines.
There are those, of course, who maintain that syndicalism
is
wholly a natural and inevitable product of ceo-