Anarcho-syndicalism

A petty-bourgeois opportunist current in the labor movement. Like anarchism, many of whose ideas it assimilated, anarcho-syndicalism, in the labor movement was directed against political forms of class struggle and the leading role of the Marxist party. Proponents of anarcho-syndicalism saw the economic strikes, sabotage, boycotts and the like as the principal means of opposing capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalism arose in the late 19^th century and had a following mainly in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Latin America. Prior to the Second World War, it had considerable influence in the international trade union movement, but the increased influence of communist and workers’ parties and the upsurge of the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries following the war drastically undermined anarcho-syndicalism.