Free Association of German Trade Unions
Encyclopedia
The Free Association of German Trade Unions was a trade union
federation in Imperial
and early Weimar Germany
. It was founded in 1897 in Halle
under the name Representatives' Centralization of Germany as the national umbrella organization
of the localist current of the German labor movement
. The localists rejected the centralization in the labor movement following the sunset
of the Anti-Socialist Laws
in 1890 and preferred grassroots
democratic structures. The lack of a strike
code soon led to conflict within the organization. Various ways of providing financial support for strikes were tested before a system of voluntary solidarity was agreed upon in 1903, the same year the name Free Association of German Trade Unions was adopted.
During the years following its formation, the FVdG began to adopt increasingly radical positions. During the German socialist movement's debate over the use of mass strikes, the FVdG advanced the view that the general strike
must be a weapon in the hands of the working class. The federation believed the mass strike was the last step before a socialist revolution and became increasingly critical of parliament
ary action. Disputes with the mainstream labor movement finally led to the expulsion of FVdG members from the Social Democratic Party of Germany
(SPD) in 1908 and the complete severing of relations between the two organizations. Anarchist
and especially syndicalist
positions became increasingly popular within the FVdG. During World War I
, the FVdG rejected the SPD's and mainstream labor movement's cooperation with the German state—known as the Burgfrieden
—but was unable to organize any significant resistance to or continue its regular activities during the war. Immediately after the November Revolution, the FVdG very quickly became a mass organization. It was particularly attractive to miners from the Ruhr area
opposed to the mainstream unions' reformist policies. In December 1919, the federation merged with several minor left communist unions to become the Free Workers' Union of Germany
(FAUD).
, a typesetter and prominent trade unionist in the 1870s, was the "intellectual father" of the localist and anarcho-syndicalist movement. Vogel's and Rübner's claim is based on the fact that Hillmann was the first in Germany to consider unions' primary role to be the creation of the conditions for a socialist revolution, not simply to improve workers' living conditions. He also advocated a de-centralized trade union federation structure. Many of the later anarcho-syndicalists including Rudolf Rocker
agree with this notion. Hans Manfred Bock, on the other hand, sees no evidence for Hillmann's influence on the FVdG.
From 1878 to 1890, the Anti-Socialist Laws
forbade all socialist trade unions. Only small local organizations, which communicated via intermediaries such as stewards, who worked illegally or semi-legally, survived. This form of organization was easier to protect against state repression. After the laws were sunset
in 1890, the General Commission of the Trade Unions of Germany was founded on November 17 at a conference in Berlin
to centralize the socialist labor movement. In 1892, the Trade Union Congress of Halberstadt was held to organize the many local unions under the committee. The localists, 31,000 of whom were represented at the congress, wanted to retain many of the changes that had been adopted during the repressive period. For example, they opposed separate organizations for political and economic matters, such as the party and the trade union. They especially wanted to keep their grassroots democratic
structures. They also advocated local trade unions being networked by delegates rather than ruled centrally, and were wary of bureaucratic structures. The localists' proposals were rejected at the Halberstadt congress, so they refused to join the centralized trade unions, which became known as the Free Trade Unions
. They did not renounce social democracy
, but rather considered themselves to be an avant-garde
within the social democratic movement in Germany.
The localists' main stronghold was in Berlin, although localist unions existed in the rest of the Empire as well. Masons, carpenters, and some metal-working professions—especially those requiring a higher degree of qualification like coppersmiths or gold and silver workers—were represented in large numbers. By 1891, there were at least 20,000 metal workers in localist trade unions, just as many as in the centralized German Metalworkers' Union.
, the localists founded a national organization of their own, the Representatives' Centralization of Germany (Vertrauensmänner-Zentralisation Deutschlands). The congress was originally supposed to take place a year earlier, but a lack of interest forced it to be postponed. There were 37 delegates at the congress representing 6,803 union members. Nearly two-thirds of the delegates came from Berlin or Halle. Almost half the delegates worked in the construction industry, while 14 delegates came from highly specialized professions. The congress decided to establish a five-person Business Commission seated in Berlin to organize political actions, aid in communication between local organizations, and raise financial support for strikes. Fritz Kater
became the chairman of the commission. A newspaper, Solidarität (Solidarity), was founded, but the name was changed to Die Einigkeit
(Unity) the following year. It initially appeared fortnightly, but was published on a weekly basis beginning in 1898.
The decision to found a national organization was likely the result of several factors. First, the mainstream trade unions were increasingly reformist
and centralized. Second, the localists gained confidence from their involvement in the dock workers' strike in Hamburg
in late 1896 and early 1897. Third, loss of membership (for example, the Berlin metal workers rejoined the DMV in 1897) convinced the localists of the need for action.
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The Representatives' Centralization's relationship to the SPD was ambivalent. The organization was allied with the SPD and supported the Erfurt Program
. At the same time, the party mostly opposed the founding of the Representatives' Centralization and called upon its members to rejoin the centralized trade unions. The FVdG remained affiliated with the SPD, which in turn tolerated it because the SPD was afraid a split would lead to a large loss of members. The FVdG stated it would rejoin the centralized trade unions like the SPD leadership desired only if the centralized unions accepted the FVdG's organizational principles.
workers. In 1899, the Business Committee felt it had to support a strike in Braunschweig
. It took out a loan, which was paid off with dues income and from donations by Berlin unions. The following year, the Business Committee incurred 8,000 Marks
in debt by supporting strikes. Part of the debt was paid off by the SPD, while the rest was apportioned among the local unions.
This practice was replaced in 1900 by a far more complex system of assessments and donations designed to raise the money to support strikes. This system was replaced in 1901 because it was impractical. The 1901 system required every local union and the central committee to create strike funds. Local unions would receive support for strikes from Berlin under certain circumstances, and the central Business Committee's fund would be replenished by all member organizations in amounts proportional to their membership and the average wage of their members. This system, too, proved problematic because it penalized the larger, wealthier unions — especially the construction workers in Berlin who had higher wages but also higher costs of living. From 1901 to 1903, many small organizations joined the federation, yet the FVdG's membership fell as the punitive strike support system drove some larger unions out. In 1903, the federation not only changed its name to the Free Association of German Trade Unions but also decided to return to the old system of voluntary contributions. This system remained in place until 1914. The Business Committee worked to ensure that unions contributed as much as they could. Often the committee resorted to threatening unions with expulsion in order to raise funds for a strike. Fritz Kater called this a dictatorship necessary for the movement, but local organizations still had far more autonomy than their counterparts in other German labor federations.
.
In 1903, a dispute between the FVdG and the Free Trade Unions in Berlin led the party commission to intervene and to sponsor talks aimed at re-unification of the two wings of the German labor movement. At the meeting, the FVdG made a number of compromises, which led to member protests. Soon, over one-third of the members left the union. The 1903 FVdG congress elected a panel to continue negotiations with the Free Trade Unions. This panel demanded that the Free Trade Unions adopt localist organizational principles as a prerequisite for re-unification. The FVdG panel realized this demand was unrealistic, but hoped the expulsion of revisionists
from the SPD during the debate on Eduard Bernstein's
theses would strengthen their position. The impossibility of a reconciliation between the two became obvious by March 1904, since the re-unification envisioned by both the leadership of the SPD and the Free Trade Unions was more along the lines of an integration of the FVdG into the Free Trade Unions.
The FVdG's disillusionment with the social democratic movement deepened during the mass strike debate. The role of the general strike
for the socialist movement was first discussed within the FVdG in 1901. At the SPD's 1903 congress in Dresden
, Raphael Friedeberg proposed discussing the topic, but his proposal was rejected by the congress. The following year, a proposal by Wilhelm Liebknecht
and Eduard Bernstein to initiate debate on the topic was accepted, since they had distanced themselves from Friedeberg's positions.
Liebknecht and Bernstein, like the left wing of the party, felt the general strike should not be used to provoke the state but rather to defend political rights (especially the right to vote) should the state should seek to abolish them. The more conservative faction in the party was opposed to this concept. In 1904, Friedeberg, speaking for the FVdG, advanced the view that the general strike must be a weapon in the hands of the proletariat
and would be the last step before the socialist revolution. In 1905, his speech on the topic was even more radical. He claimed that historical materialism
, a pillar of Marxism
, was to blame for social democracy's alleged powerlessness, and introduced the alternative concept of historical psychism—which held that human psychology was more significant for social development than material conditions. He also recommended the anarchist literature especially Kropotkin
's writings rather than Marx's works, which were most influential in the SPD.
The position that the general strike could be used, but only as a last resort, became dominant in the party during the mass strike debate. This caused much concern among the conservatives in the party, especially among many trade unionists. At a meeting in February 1906, the trade unionists were placated by party leaders, who said they would attempt to prevent a general strike at all costs. The FVdG reacted by publishing the secret protocols from the meeting in Die Einigkeit, greatly angering the party leadership.
At the 1905 party convention, August Bebel
, who had always favored a stronger role for the SPD-affiliated unions, proposed a resolution requiring all members of the party to join the centralized trade unions for their respective professions. This would have forced all FVdG members to either leave the party or the trade union. The resolution was adopted, and implemented in 1907. An FVdG survey returned a vote of twenty-two to eight opposing rejoining the centralized unions. This led some of the masons
, carpenters
, and construction worker
s in the union to leave the FVdG in 1907 to avoid being expelled from the SPD, saying the organization was "taking a path, which would certainly lead to strife with the SPD and to syndicalism and anarchism." In 1908, the SPD's Nuremberg congress finally voted to make SPD and FVdG membership incompatible.
In addition to causing about two-thirds of its members to quit between 1906 and 1910, the radicalization of the FVdG also correlates to a slight change in the milieu, industries, and regions from which the organization drew its members. Many metal and construction workers, who had a localist tradition, left as a result of the syndicalist and anarchist tendencies in the FVdG. Miners, who worked mostly in the Ruhr area
, did not have this tradition but developed a certain skepticism of bureaucratic structures. About 450 of them joined the FVdG before World War I
, a sign of what was to come after the war.
, the platform of the French General Confederation of Labor
(CGT), the earliest and largest syndicalist union worldwide, "a new revelation". Although there was no contact between German "intellectual anarchists" (like Gustav Landauer
and Erich Mühsam
) and the FVdG, it did have influential anarchist members, most notably Andreas Kleinlein
and Fritz Köster
. Kleinlein and Köster increasingly influenced the federation from 1908 on, and this led to the founding of Der Pionier
in 1911. This newspaper, which was edited by Köster, had a much more aggressive tone than Die Einigkeit. Despite these developments, the influence of the anarchists in the pre-World War I FVdG remained quantitatively minute, especially as leading members like Kater were at the time very skeptical of the anarchist ideology.
After both the British Industrial Syndicalist Education League
(ISEL), a short-lived syndicalist organization heavily involved in the strike wave in Britain from 1910, and the Dutch syndicalist union National Labor Secretariat
(NAS) published proposals for an international syndicalist congress in 1913, the FVdG was the first to express support. There were difficulties in organizing the congress, and the largest syndicalist union worldwide — the CGT — refused to participate because it was already affiliated with the social democratic International Federation of Trade Unions
. Despite these challenges, the First International Syndicalist Congress
took place at Holborn Town Hall in London
from September 27 to October 2. British, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Belgian, French, Spanish, Italian, Cuban, Brazilian, and Argentine organizations—both labor unions and political groups — had delegates in London in addition to the FVdG, which was represented by Karl Roche
, Carl Windhoff
, and Fritz Kater. There were also links with Norwegian, Polish, and American groups. Kater was elected co-president of the congress alongside Jack Wills. After Wills was forced to resign, Kater served as co-president with Jack Tanner
. The congress had difficulty agreeing on many issues, the main source of conflict being whether further schisms in the European labor movement (as had occurred in Germany and the Netherlands) should be risked. The FVdG generally agreed with their Dutch comrades in calling on other unions to decide between syndicalism and socialism, while their Italian, French, and Spanish counterparts, most notably Alceste De Ambris
of the Italian USI
, were more intent on preventing further division. Accordingly, the congress was divided on the question of whether its purpose was to simply pave the way for deeper relations between the syndicalist unions or whether a Syndicalist International was to be founded. The opponents of a new organization prevailed, but the congress agreed to establish an Information Bureau. The Information Bureau was based in Amsterdam and published the Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste
. The congress was considered a success by most who attended, with the notable exception of De Ambris. A second congress was scheduled to take place in two years' time in Amsterdam. Due to the outbreak of World War I
, the congress did not take place. The Bulletin only published for eighteen issues before the war caused it to cease publication.
, the FVdG denounced the SPD's anti-war rhetoric as "complete humbug". With the start of war, the SPD and the mainstream labor movement entered into the Burgfrieden
(or civil truce) with the German state. Under this agreement, the unions' structures remained intact and the government did not cut wages during the war. For their part, the unions did not support new strikes, ended current ones, and mobilized support for the war effort. The 1916 Auxiliary War Service Law established further cooperation between employers, unions, and the state by creating workers' committees in the factories and joint management-union arbitration courts.
The FVdG, on the other hand, was the only labor organization in the country which refused to participate in the Burgfrieden. The union held that war-time patriotism was incompatible with proletarian internationalism
and that war could only bring greater exploitation of labor. (Indeed, the average real wage
fell by 55 percent during the war.) While the mainstream labor movement was quick to agree with the state that Russia
and the United Kingdom
were to blame for igniting the war, the FVdG held that the cause for the war was imperialism
and that no blame could be assigned until after the conflict ended. The federation strongly criticized hostility towards foreigners working in Germany, especially Poles and Italians. It also rejected the concepts of the "nation
" and national identity invoked in support of the war, claiming that common language, origin and culture (the foundations of a nation) did not exist in Germany. The FVdG's newspapers also declared that the war refuted historical materialism
, since the masses had gone to war against their own material interests.
After Fritz Kater and Max Winkler reaffirmed syndicalist antimilitarism
in the August 5, 1914 Der Pionier edition, the newspaper was banned. Three days later, Die Einigkeit criticized the SPD's stance on the war. It was then suppressed as well. The FVdG promptly responded by founding the weekly Mitteilungsblatt. After it was banned in June 1915, the federation founded the bi-weekly Rundschreiben, which survived until May 1917. Social Democratic publications on the other hand were allowed by Prussian War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn
to be distributed even in the army. In the first days of the war, about 30 FVdG activists in Cologne
, Elberfeld
, Düsseldorf
, Krefeld
and other cities were arrested—some remaining under house arrest
for two years. The government repression against the FVdG was heavy. While bans were often placed on the union's regular meetings, authorities in Düsseldorf even banned meetings of the syndicalist choir. Another problem for the union was that many of its members were conscripted. Half of the Berlin construction workers, the federation's largest union, were forced to serve in the army. In some places, all FVdG members were called into service.
Although the FVdG insisted that the "goal is everything and [...] must be everything" (a play on Bernstein's formula that "the final goal, whatever it may be, is nothing to me: the movement is everything"), it was unable to do much more than keep its own structures alive during World War I. Immediately after the declaration of war, FVdG tried to continue its antiwar demonstrations to no avail. Although it constantly criticized the Burgfrieden and militarism in general, industrial action was not possible except for a few minor cases (most notably resistance by the carpenters' union to Sunday work). The FVdG also received support from abroad. The faction in the Italian USI
led by Armando Borghi, an antimilitarist minority in the French CGT, the Dutch NAS, as well as Spanish, Swedish, and Danish syndicalists were all united with the FVdG in their opposition to the war.
As the Great War progressed, war exhaustion in Germany grew. The first strikes in the country since the start of the war broke out in 1915, steadily increasing in frequency and magnitude. The unions' role as troubleshooter between the employers and the workers soon led to conflict between the membership and union officials, and the Free Trade Unions steadily lost members. Correspondingly, the Reichstag
faction of the SPD split over continued support for the war. The 1917 February Revolution
in Russia was seen by the FVdG as an expression of the people's desire for peace. The syndicalists paid special attention to the role the general strike (which they had been advocating for years) played in the revolution. They were unable to comment on the October Revolution
as the Rundschreiben had been banned by the time it broke out.
In Spring 1919, Karl Roche wrote a new platform for the FVdG entitled "Was wollen die Syndikalisten? Programm, Ziele und Wege der 'Freien Vereinigung deutscher Gewerkschaften'" ("What Do the Syndicalists Want? The Program, Goals, and Means of the 'Free Association of German Trade Unions'"). In addition to reiterating pre-war ideas and slogans, it went further by criticizing participation in electoral democracy, claiming that this handicapped and confused proletarian class struggle. The platform also called for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat
, a position which was designed to reach out to the newly-formed Communist Party
(KPD) and International Communists of Germany. In late 1918 and early 1919, the FVdG became an important player in the strike movement in the Ruhr region (which mostly involved miners). Its organizers, most notably Carl Windhoff, became regular speakers at workers' demonstrations. On April 1, a general strike supported by the FVdG, the KPD and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) began. The strike eventually involved up to 75 percent of the region's miners until it was violently suppressed in late April by the SPD-led government. After the strike and the ensuing collapse of the General Miners' Union, the FVdG expanded its unions rapidly and independently of the aforementioned political parties, especially in the Ruhr region. This led to a massive expansion in FVdG membership. The FVdG's criticism of the bureaucratic centralized trade unions, its advocation of direct action
, and its low membership dues were received well by the workers in the Ruhr region. By August 1919, the federation had around 60,000 members throughout Germany. However, its Ruhr miners' unions left the craft unionist
scheme the FVdG had traditionally been organized by behind, preferring simpler industrial
structures.
The end of cooperation between the FVdG and the political parties in the Ruhr region was part of a nationwide trend after Paul Levi
, an anti-syndicalist, became chairman of the KPD in March. Moreover, Rudolf Rocker
, a communist anarchist and follower of Kropotkin
, joined the FVdG in March 1919. He returned via The Netherlands in November 1918 after living in exile in London, where he had been active in the Jewish anarchist scene. Augustin Souchy
, more of a Landauer
-esque anarchist, also joined the federation in 1919. Both rapidly gained influence in the organization and—as anti-Marxists—were opposed to close collaboration with communists.
Nevertheless, the FVdG's Rhineland
and Westphalia
section merged with left communist unions to form the Free Workers' Union (FAU) in September 1919. Syndicalists from the FVdG were the biggest and most dominant faction in the FAU. The FAU's statutes mostly reflected compromises by the federation's member unions, but also reflected the FVdG's significant influence.
Soon it was decided to complete the merger in Rhineland and Westphalia on a national level. The FVdG's 12th congress, held December 27 to 30, became the Free Workers' Union of Germany
's (FAUD) founding congress. Most left communists (including the influential veteran member Karl Roche) had already quit or were in the process of leaving the FAU in Rhineland and Westphalia by this point. The majority of them would join the General Workers' Union of Germany
(AAUD), which was founded in February 1920. Without the left communists to oppose its adoption, Rocker's thoroughly anarchist "Prinzipienerklärung des Syndikalismus" ("Declaration of Syndicalist Principles"), which the Business Commission had charged him with drafting, became the FAUD's platform without much controversy. The FAUD also rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat and other Marxist terms and ideas. According to the Business Commission, the congress was attended by 109 delegates representing 111,675 workers, twice as many as were claimed just four and a half months earlier.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
federation in Imperial
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and early Weimar Germany
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
. It was founded in 1897 in Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
under the name Representatives' Centralization of Germany as the national umbrella organization
Umbrella organization
An umbrella organization is an association of institutions, who work together formally to coordinate activities or pool resources. In business, political, or other environments, one group, the umbrella organization, provides resources and often an identity to the smaller organizations...
of the localist current of the German labor movement
Trade unions in Germany
Trade unions have a long history in Germany, reaching back to the German revolution in 1848, and still play an important role in German economy and society...
. The localists rejected the centralization in the labor movement following the sunset
Sunset provision
In public policy, a sunset provision or clause is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law...
of the Anti-Socialist Laws
Anti-Socialist Laws
The Anti-Socialist Laws or Socialist Laws were a series of acts, the first of which was passed on October 19, 1878 by the German Reichstag lasting till March 31, 1881, and extended 4 times...
in 1890 and preferred grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
democratic structures. The lack of a strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
code soon led to conflict within the organization. Various ways of providing financial support for strikes were tested before a system of voluntary solidarity was agreed upon in 1903, the same year the name Free Association of German Trade Unions was adopted.
During the years following its formation, the FVdG began to adopt increasingly radical positions. During the German socialist movement's debate over the use of mass strikes, the FVdG advanced the view that the general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
must be a weapon in the hands of the working class. The federation believed the mass strike was the last step before a socialist revolution and became increasingly critical of parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
ary action. Disputes with the mainstream labor movement finally led to the expulsion of FVdG members from the Social Democratic Party of Germany
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD) in 1908 and the complete severing of relations between the two organizations. Anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and especially syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
positions became increasingly popular within the FVdG. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the FVdG rejected the SPD's and mainstream labor movement's cooperation with the German state—known as the Burgfrieden
Burgfrieden
Burgfrieden—literally "fortress peace" or "castle peace" but more accurately "party truce"—is a German term used for the political truce the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the other political parties agreed to during World War I...
—but was unable to organize any significant resistance to or continue its regular activities during the war. Immediately after the November Revolution, the FVdG very quickly became a mass organization. It was particularly attractive to miners from the Ruhr area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
opposed to the mainstream unions' reformist policies. In December 1919, the federation merged with several minor left communist unions to become the Free Workers' Union of Germany
Free Workers' Union of Germany
The Free Workers' Union of Germany was an anarcho-syndicalist trade union, which existed from the renaming of the Free Association of German Trade Unions on September 15, 1919 to its official disbandment in January 1933 after the Nazis came into power, although many of its members continued to be...
(FAUD).
Background
According to Angela Vogel and Hartmut Rübner, Carl HillmannCarl Hillmann
Carl Hillmann was an American Republican politician from Wisconsin.Born in Rantoul, Wisconsin, Hillmann served on the Rantoul Town Board, as Justice of the Peace, and on the Calumet County, Wisconsin Board of Supervisors. He served in the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1923, 1925, and 1927.-Notes:...
, a typesetter and prominent trade unionist in the 1870s, was the "intellectual father" of the localist and anarcho-syndicalist movement. Vogel's and Rübner's claim is based on the fact that Hillmann was the first in Germany to consider unions' primary role to be the creation of the conditions for a socialist revolution, not simply to improve workers' living conditions. He also advocated a de-centralized trade union federation structure. Many of the later anarcho-syndicalists including Rudolf Rocker
Rudolf Rocker
Johann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...
agree with this notion. Hans Manfred Bock, on the other hand, sees no evidence for Hillmann's influence on the FVdG.
Anti-Socialist Laws
The Anti-Socialist Laws or Socialist Laws were a series of acts, the first of which was passed on October 19, 1878 by the German Reichstag lasting till March 31, 1881, and extended 4 times...
forbade all socialist trade unions. Only small local organizations, which communicated via intermediaries such as stewards, who worked illegally or semi-legally, survived. This form of organization was easier to protect against state repression. After the laws were sunset
Sunset provision
In public policy, a sunset provision or clause is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law...
in 1890, the General Commission of the Trade Unions of Germany was founded on November 17 at a conference in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to centralize the socialist labor movement. In 1892, the Trade Union Congress of Halberstadt was held to organize the many local unions under the committee. The localists, 31,000 of whom were represented at the congress, wanted to retain many of the changes that had been adopted during the repressive period. For example, they opposed separate organizations for political and economic matters, such as the party and the trade union. They especially wanted to keep their grassroots democratic
Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....
structures. They also advocated local trade unions being networked by delegates rather than ruled centrally, and were wary of bureaucratic structures. The localists' proposals were rejected at the Halberstadt congress, so they refused to join the centralized trade unions, which became known as the Free Trade Unions
Free Trade Unions (Germany)
The Free Trade Unions comprised the socialist trade union movement in Germany from 1890 to 1933. The term distinguished them from the liberal and Christian labor unions in Germany...
. They did not renounce social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
, but rather considered themselves to be an avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
within the social democratic movement in Germany.
The localists' main stronghold was in Berlin, although localist unions existed in the rest of the Empire as well. Masons, carpenters, and some metal-working professions—especially those requiring a higher degree of qualification like coppersmiths or gold and silver workers—were represented in large numbers. By 1891, there were at least 20,000 metal workers in localist trade unions, just as many as in the centralized German Metalworkers' Union.
Founding
At a congress in 1897 in HalleHalle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
, the localists founded a national organization of their own, the Representatives' Centralization of Germany (Vertrauensmänner-Zentralisation Deutschlands). The congress was originally supposed to take place a year earlier, but a lack of interest forced it to be postponed. There were 37 delegates at the congress representing 6,803 union members. Nearly two-thirds of the delegates came from Berlin or Halle. Almost half the delegates worked in the construction industry, while 14 delegates came from highly specialized professions. The congress decided to establish a five-person Business Commission seated in Berlin to organize political actions, aid in communication between local organizations, and raise financial support for strikes. Fritz Kater
Fritz Kater
Fritz Kater was a German trade unionist active in the Free Association of German Trade Unions and its successor organization, the Free Workers' Union of Germany...
became the chairman of the commission. A newspaper, Solidarität (Solidarity), was founded, but the name was changed to Die Einigkeit
Die Einigkeit
Die Einigkeit was a newspaper, which appeared from June 19, 1897 to August 8, 1914. It was the organ of the radical socialist Free Association of German Trade Unions...
(Unity) the following year. It initially appeared fortnightly, but was published on a weekly basis beginning in 1898.
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
and centralized. Second, the localists gained confidence from their involvement in the dock workers' strike in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in late 1896 and early 1897. Third, loss of membership (for example, the Berlin metal workers rejoined the DMV in 1897) convinced the localists of the need for action.
Erfurt Program
The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD congress at Erfurt in 1891. Formulated under the political guidance of Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky, it superseded the earlier Gotha Program....
. At the same time, the party mostly opposed the founding of the Representatives' Centralization and called upon its members to rejoin the centralized trade unions. The FVdG remained affiliated with the SPD, which in turn tolerated it because the SPD was afraid a split would lead to a large loss of members. The FVdG stated it would rejoin the centralized trade unions like the SPD leadership desired only if the centralized unions accepted the FVdG's organizational principles.
Early years
The early years of the Representatives' Centralization of Germany were dominated by a discussion on how to finance strikes by individual local trade unions. The issue was how local unions could retain their autonomy when receiving financial assistance. Originally, all support between local organizations had been voluntary. But this system became more and more impractical, especially after the turn of the 20th century saw numerous large strikes in which employers reacted more aggressively — often by locking outLockout (industry)
A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.- Causes :...
workers. In 1899, the Business Committee felt it had to support a strike in Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
. It took out a loan, which was paid off with dues income and from donations by Berlin unions. The following year, the Business Committee incurred 8,000 Marks
German gold mark
The Goldmark was the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914.-History:Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver...
in debt by supporting strikes. Part of the debt was paid off by the SPD, while the rest was apportioned among the local unions.
This practice was replaced in 1900 by a far more complex system of assessments and donations designed to raise the money to support strikes. This system was replaced in 1901 because it was impractical. The 1901 system required every local union and the central committee to create strike funds. Local unions would receive support for strikes from Berlin under certain circumstances, and the central Business Committee's fund would be replenished by all member organizations in amounts proportional to their membership and the average wage of their members. This system, too, proved problematic because it penalized the larger, wealthier unions — especially the construction workers in Berlin who had higher wages but also higher costs of living. From 1901 to 1903, many small organizations joined the federation, yet the FVdG's membership fell as the punitive strike support system drove some larger unions out. In 1903, the federation not only changed its name to the Free Association of German Trade Unions but also decided to return to the old system of voluntary contributions. This system remained in place until 1914. The Business Committee worked to ensure that unions contributed as much as they could. Often the committee resorted to threatening unions with expulsion in order to raise funds for a strike. Fritz Kater called this a dictatorship necessary for the movement, but local organizations still had far more autonomy than their counterparts in other German labor federations.
Radicalization and expulsion from the SPD
During the first decade of the 20th century, the FVdG was transformed from a localist union federation into a syndicalist labor organization with anarchist tendencies. The process was initiated by the death of Gustav Keßler, the most important ideologue in the FVdG, in 1903. His role was largely assumed by the physician Raphael FriedebergRaphael Friedeberg
Raphael Friedeberg was a German physician, socialist, and later anarchist.- Early life :Friedeberg was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, today's Sovetsk, Russia, to Salomon, a Rabbi, and Rebekka Friedeberg née Levy...
.
In 1903, a dispute between the FVdG and the Free Trade Unions in Berlin led the party commission to intervene and to sponsor talks aimed at re-unification of the two wings of the German labor movement. At the meeting, the FVdG made a number of compromises, which led to member protests. Soon, over one-third of the members left the union. The 1903 FVdG congress elected a panel to continue negotiations with the Free Trade Unions. This panel demanded that the Free Trade Unions adopt localist organizational principles as a prerequisite for re-unification. The FVdG panel realized this demand was unrealistic, but hoped the expulsion of revisionists
Revisionism (Marxism)
Within the Marxist movement, the word revisionism is used to refer to various ideas, principles and theories that are based on a significant revision of fundamental Marxist premises. The term is most often used by those Marxists who believe that such revisions are unwarranted and represent a...
from the SPD during the debate on Eduard Bernstein's
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein was a German social democratic theoretician and politician, a member of the SPD, and the founder of evolutionary socialism and revisionism.- Life :...
theses would strengthen their position. The impossibility of a reconciliation between the two became obvious by March 1904, since the re-unification envisioned by both the leadership of the SPD and the Free Trade Unions was more along the lines of an integration of the FVdG into the Free Trade Unions.
The FVdG's disillusionment with the social democratic movement deepened during the mass strike debate. The role of the general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
for the socialist movement was first discussed within the FVdG in 1901. At the SPD's 1903 congress in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Raphael Friedeberg proposed discussing the topic, but his proposal was rejected by the congress. The following year, a proposal by Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht was a German social democrat and a principal founder of the SPD. His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity...
and Eduard Bernstein to initiate debate on the topic was accepted, since they had distanced themselves from Friedeberg's positions.
Liebknecht and Bernstein, like the left wing of the party, felt the general strike should not be used to provoke the state but rather to defend political rights (especially the right to vote) should the state should seek to abolish them. The more conservative faction in the party was opposed to this concept. In 1904, Friedeberg, speaking for the FVdG, advanced the view that the general strike must be a weapon in the hands of the proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
and would be the last step before the socialist revolution. In 1905, his speech on the topic was even more radical. He claimed that historical materialism
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
, a pillar of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, was to blame for social democracy's alleged powerlessness, and introduced the alternative concept of historical psychism—which held that human psychology was more significant for social development than material conditions. He also recommended the anarchist literature especially Kropotkin
Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was a Russian prince and anarchist.Kropotkin may also refer to:*Pyotr Nikolayevich Kropotkin , Soviet/Russian geologist, tectonician, and geophysicist*Mount Kropotkin, a peak in Antarctica...
's writings rather than Marx's works, which were most influential in the SPD.
At the 1905 party convention, August Bebel
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel was a German Marxist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.-Early years:...
, who had always favored a stronger role for the SPD-affiliated unions, proposed a resolution requiring all members of the party to join the centralized trade unions for their respective professions. This would have forced all FVdG members to either leave the party or the trade union. The resolution was adopted, and implemented in 1907. An FVdG survey returned a vote of twenty-two to eight opposing rejoining the centralized unions. This led some of the masons
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
, carpenters
Carpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
, and construction worker
Construction worker
A construction worker or builder is a professional, tradesman, or labourer who directly participates in the physical construction of infrastructure.-Construction trades:...
s in the union to leave the FVdG in 1907 to avoid being expelled from the SPD, saying the organization was "taking a path, which would certainly lead to strife with the SPD and to syndicalism and anarchism." In 1908, the SPD's Nuremberg congress finally voted to make SPD and FVdG membership incompatible.
In addition to causing about two-thirds of its members to quit between 1906 and 1910, the radicalization of the FVdG also correlates to a slight change in the milieu, industries, and regions from which the organization drew its members. Many metal and construction workers, who had a localist tradition, left as a result of the syndicalist and anarchist tendencies in the FVdG. Miners, who worked mostly in the Ruhr area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
, did not have this tradition but developed a certain skepticism of bureaucratic structures. About 450 of them joined the FVdG before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, a sign of what was to come after the war.
Pre-war period
Following the split from the SPD, the FVdG was increasingly influenced by French syndicalism and anarchism. In 1908, Kater called the Charter of AmiensCharter of Amiens
The Charter of Amiens was adopted at the 9th Congress of the Confédération générale du travail French trade-union, which took place in Amiens in October 1906. Its main proposal was the separation between the union movement and the political parties...
, the platform of the French General Confederation of Labor
Confédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
(CGT), the earliest and largest syndicalist union worldwide, "a new revelation". Although there was no contact between German "intellectual anarchists" (like Gustav Landauer
Gustav Landauer
Gustav Landauer was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of communist anarchism and an avowed pacifist. Landauer is also known for his study and translations of William Shakespeare's works into German...
and Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam
Erich Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic....
) and the FVdG, it did have influential anarchist members, most notably Andreas Kleinlein
Andreas Kleinlein
Andreas Kleinlein was a German anarchist. He came into contact with anarchist ideas through his travels to France. He was active in the musical instrument-maker union in Berlin and a founding member of the Free Association of German Trade Unions , one of the most influential anarchists in the...
and Fritz Köster
Fritz Köster
Fritz Köster was a German anarchist editor and trade unionist.Born in Rodenberg, Hesse , Köster was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany starting in the early 1880s...
. Kleinlein and Köster increasingly influenced the federation from 1908 on, and this led to the founding of Der Pionier
Der Pionier
Der Pionier was one of two official organs of the radical socialist Free Association of German Trade Unions .With its founding in 1897, the FVdG also started the newspaper Einigkeit as its official organ...
in 1911. This newspaper, which was edited by Köster, had a much more aggressive tone than Die Einigkeit. Despite these developments, the influence of the anarchists in the pre-World War I FVdG remained quantitatively minute, especially as leading members like Kater were at the time very skeptical of the anarchist ideology.
Industrial Syndicalist Education League
The Industrial Syndicalist Education League was a British syndicalist organisation which existed from 1910 to 1913.In May 1910 Guy Bowman and Tom Mann, two dissident members of the Social Democratic Federation travelled to France visiting members of the syndicalist General Confederation of...
(ISEL), a short-lived syndicalist organization heavily involved in the strike wave in Britain from 1910, and the Dutch syndicalist union National Labor Secretariat
National Labor Secretariat
The National Labor Secretariat was a trade union federation in the Netherlands from 1893 to 1940.-Early years:...
(NAS) published proposals for an international syndicalist congress in 1913, the FVdG was the first to express support. There were difficulties in organizing the congress, and the largest syndicalist union worldwide — the CGT — refused to participate because it was already affiliated with the social democratic International Federation of Trade Unions
International Federation of Trade Unions
The International Federation of Trade Unions was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU....
. Despite these challenges, the First International Syndicalist Congress
First International Syndicalist Congress
The First International Syndicalist Congress was a meeting of European and Latin American syndicalist organizations at Holborn Town Hall in London from September 27 to October 2, 1913...
took place at Holborn Town Hall in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
from September 27 to October 2. British, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Belgian, French, Spanish, Italian, Cuban, Brazilian, and Argentine organizations—both labor unions and political groups — had delegates in London in addition to the FVdG, which was represented by Karl Roche
Karl Roche
Karl Roche was a German syndicalist and left communist trade unionist. Roche joined the Free Association of German Trade Unions around 1900 as a seaman. He became a prominent member of the organization. In 1913, Carl Windhoff, Fritz Kater, and he were the FVdG delegates at the First International...
, Carl Windhoff
Carl Windhoff
Carl Windhoff was a German syndicalist trade unionist.He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1890. He was one of the most important SPD leaders Düsseldorf until he left the party in 1901. He then joined the Free Association of German Trade Unions and become one of its most prominent...
, and Fritz Kater. There were also links with Norwegian, Polish, and American groups. Kater was elected co-president of the congress alongside Jack Wills. After Wills was forced to resign, Kater served as co-president with Jack Tanner
Jack Tanner (trade unionist)
John Shirley Frederick Tanner , known as Jack Tanner, was a British trade unionist.Born in Whitstable, Tanner grew up in London and became a fitter and turner at the age of 14...
. The congress had difficulty agreeing on many issues, the main source of conflict being whether further schisms in the European labor movement (as had occurred in Germany and the Netherlands) should be risked. The FVdG generally agreed with their Dutch comrades in calling on other unions to decide between syndicalism and socialism, while their Italian, French, and Spanish counterparts, most notably Alceste De Ambris
Alceste De Ambris
Alceste De Ambris , was an Italian syndicalist, the brother of Amilcare De Ambris. De Ambris had a major part to play in the agrarian strike actions of 1908.-Life:De Ambris was born in Licciana Nardi, province of Massa-Carrara....
of the Italian USI
Unione Sindacale Italiana
Unione Sindacale Italiana is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union. It is the Italian section of the International Workers Association , and the name of USI is...
, were more intent on preventing further division. Accordingly, the congress was divided on the question of whether its purpose was to simply pave the way for deeper relations between the syndicalist unions or whether a Syndicalist International was to be founded. The opponents of a new organization prevailed, but the congress agreed to establish an Information Bureau. The Information Bureau was based in Amsterdam and published the Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste
Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste
Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste was a syndicalist periodical published from 1907 by Christiaan Cornelissen and from 1913 by the International Syndicalist Bureau in Amsterdam....
. The congress was considered a success by most who attended, with the notable exception of De Ambris. A second congress was scheduled to take place in two years' time in Amsterdam. Due to the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the congress did not take place. The Bulletin only published for eighteen issues before the war caused it to cease publication.
World War I
During the buildup to World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the FVdG denounced the SPD's anti-war rhetoric as "complete humbug". With the start of war, the SPD and the mainstream labor movement entered into the Burgfrieden
Burgfrieden
Burgfrieden—literally "fortress peace" or "castle peace" but more accurately "party truce"—is a German term used for the political truce the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the other political parties agreed to during World War I...
(or civil truce) with the German state. Under this agreement, the unions' structures remained intact and the government did not cut wages during the war. For their part, the unions did not support new strikes, ended current ones, and mobilized support for the war effort. The 1916 Auxiliary War Service Law established further cooperation between employers, unions, and the state by creating workers' committees in the factories and joint management-union arbitration courts.
Proletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
and that war could only bring greater exploitation of labor. (Indeed, the average real wage
Real wage
The term real wages refers to wages that have been adjusted for inflation. This term is used in contrast to nominal wages or unadjusted wages. Real wages provide a clearer representation of an individual's wages....
fell by 55 percent during the war.) While the mainstream labor movement was quick to agree with the state that Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
were to blame for igniting the war, the FVdG held that the cause for the war was imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
and that no blame could be assigned until after the conflict ended. The federation strongly criticized hostility towards foreigners working in Germany, especially Poles and Italians. It also rejected the concepts of the "nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
" and national identity invoked in support of the war, claiming that common language, origin and culture (the foundations of a nation) did not exist in Germany. The FVdG's newspapers also declared that the war refuted historical materialism
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
, since the masses had gone to war against their own material interests.
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
in the August 5, 1914 Der Pionier edition, the newspaper was banned. Three days later, Die Einigkeit criticized the SPD's stance on the war. It was then suppressed as well. The FVdG promptly responded by founding the weekly Mitteilungsblatt. After it was banned in June 1915, the federation founded the bi-weekly Rundschreiben, which survived until May 1917. Social Democratic publications on the other hand were allowed by Prussian War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn
Erich von Falkenhayn
Erich von Falkenhayn was a German soldier and Chief of the General Staff during World War I. He became a military writer after World War I.-Early life:...
to be distributed even in the army. In the first days of the war, about 30 FVdG activists in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Elberfeld
Elberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...
, Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Krefeld
Krefeld
Krefeld , also known as Crefeld until 1929, is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its centre lying just a few kilometres to the west of the River Rhine; the borough of Uerdingen is situated directly on the Rhine...
and other cities were arrested—some remaining under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
for two years. The government repression against the FVdG was heavy. While bans were often placed on the union's regular meetings, authorities in Düsseldorf even banned meetings of the syndicalist choir. Another problem for the union was that many of its members were conscripted. Half of the Berlin construction workers, the federation's largest union, were forced to serve in the army. In some places, all FVdG members were called into service.
Although the FVdG insisted that the "goal is everything and [...] must be everything" (a play on Bernstein's formula that "the final goal, whatever it may be, is nothing to me: the movement is everything"), it was unable to do much more than keep its own structures alive during World War I. Immediately after the declaration of war, FVdG tried to continue its antiwar demonstrations to no avail. Although it constantly criticized the Burgfrieden and militarism in general, industrial action was not possible except for a few minor cases (most notably resistance by the carpenters' union to Sunday work). The FVdG also received support from abroad. The faction in the Italian USI
Unione Sindacale Italiana
Unione Sindacale Italiana is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union. It is the Italian section of the International Workers Association , and the name of USI is...
led by Armando Borghi, an antimilitarist minority in the French CGT, the Dutch NAS, as well as Spanish, Swedish, and Danish syndicalists were all united with the FVdG in their opposition to the war.
As the Great War progressed, war exhaustion in Germany grew. The first strikes in the country since the start of the war broke out in 1915, steadily increasing in frequency and magnitude. The unions' role as troubleshooter between the employers and the workers soon led to conflict between the membership and union officials, and the Free Trade Unions steadily lost members. Correspondingly, the Reichstag
Reichstag (German Empire)
The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....
faction of the SPD split over continued support for the war. The 1917 February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
in Russia was seen by the FVdG as an expression of the people's desire for peace. The syndicalists paid special attention to the role the general strike (which they had been advocating for years) played in the revolution. They were unable to comment on the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
as the Rundschreiben had been banned by the time it broke out.
November Revolution and re-founding as FAUD
Some claim that the FVdG influenced strikes in the arms industry as early as February or March 1918, but the organization was not re-established on a national level until December 1918. On December 14, Fritz Kater started publishing Der Syndikalist (The Syndicalist) in Berlin as a replacement for Die Einigkeit. On December 26 and 27, a conference organized by Kater and attended by 33 delegates from 43 local unions took place in Berlin. The delegates reflected upon the difficult times during the war and proudly noted that the FVdG was the only trade union which did not have to adjust its program to the new political conditions because it had remained loyal to its anti-state and internationalist principles. The delegates reaffirmed their rejection of parliamentarianism and refused to participate in the National Assembly.In Spring 1919, Karl Roche wrote a new platform for the FVdG entitled "Was wollen die Syndikalisten? Programm, Ziele und Wege der 'Freien Vereinigung deutscher Gewerkschaften'" ("What Do the Syndicalists Want? The Program, Goals, and Means of the 'Free Association of German Trade Unions'"). In addition to reiterating pre-war ideas and slogans, it went further by criticizing participation in electoral democracy, claiming that this handicapped and confused proletarian class struggle. The platform also called for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
, a position which was designed to reach out to the newly-formed Communist Party
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD) and International Communists of Germany. In late 1918 and early 1919, the FVdG became an important player in the strike movement in the Ruhr region (which mostly involved miners). Its organizers, most notably Carl Windhoff, became regular speakers at workers' demonstrations. On April 1, a general strike supported by the FVdG, the KPD and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) began. The strike eventually involved up to 75 percent of the region's miners until it was violently suppressed in late April by the SPD-led government. After the strike and the ensuing collapse of the General Miners' Union, the FVdG expanded its unions rapidly and independently of the aforementioned political parties, especially in the Ruhr region. This led to a massive expansion in FVdG membership. The FVdG's criticism of the bureaucratic centralized trade unions, its advocation of direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
, and its low membership dues were received well by the workers in the Ruhr region. By August 1919, the federation had around 60,000 members throughout Germany. However, its Ruhr miners' unions left the craft unionist
Craft unionism
Craft unionism refers to organizing a union in a manner that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft or trade that they work in by class or skill level...
scheme the FVdG had traditionally been organized by behind, preferring simpler industrial
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
structures.
The end of cooperation between the FVdG and the political parties in the Ruhr region was part of a nationwide trend after Paul Levi
Paul Levi
Paul Levi was a German Jewish Communist political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919.-Early years:...
, an anti-syndicalist, became chairman of the KPD in March. Moreover, Rudolf Rocker
Rudolf Rocker
Johann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...
, a communist anarchist and follower of Kropotkin
Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was a Russian prince and anarchist.Kropotkin may also refer to:*Pyotr Nikolayevich Kropotkin , Soviet/Russian geologist, tectonician, and geophysicist*Mount Kropotkin, a peak in Antarctica...
, joined the FVdG in March 1919. He returned via The Netherlands in November 1918 after living in exile in London, where he had been active in the Jewish anarchist scene. Augustin Souchy
Augustin Souchy
Augustin Souchy was a German anarchist, antimilitarist, and journalist.- First World War :At the outbreak of the First World War he moved in Austria. From there he was deported to and forced to wear a sign around his neck that read "Beware: Anarchist!", which later became the title of his...
, more of a Landauer
Gustav Landauer
Gustav Landauer was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of communist anarchism and an avowed pacifist. Landauer is also known for his study and translations of William Shakespeare's works into German...
-esque anarchist, also joined the federation in 1919. Both rapidly gained influence in the organization and—as anti-Marxists—were opposed to close collaboration with communists.
Nevertheless, the FVdG's Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
and Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
section merged with left communist unions to form the Free Workers' Union (FAU) in September 1919. Syndicalists from the FVdG were the biggest and most dominant faction in the FAU. The FAU's statutes mostly reflected compromises by the federation's member unions, but also reflected the FVdG's significant influence.
Soon it was decided to complete the merger in Rhineland and Westphalia on a national level. The FVdG's 12th congress, held December 27 to 30, became the Free Workers' Union of Germany
Free Workers' Union of Germany
The Free Workers' Union of Germany was an anarcho-syndicalist trade union, which existed from the renaming of the Free Association of German Trade Unions on September 15, 1919 to its official disbandment in January 1933 after the Nazis came into power, although many of its members continued to be...
's (FAUD) founding congress. Most left communists (including the influential veteran member Karl Roche) had already quit or were in the process of leaving the FAU in Rhineland and Westphalia by this point. The majority of them would join the General Workers' Union of Germany
General Workers' Union of Germany
General Workers' Union of Germany , was the name of factory organisations formed following the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in opposition to the traditional trade unions...
(AAUD), which was founded in February 1920. Without the left communists to oppose its adoption, Rocker's thoroughly anarchist "Prinzipienerklärung des Syndikalismus" ("Declaration of Syndicalist Principles"), which the Business Commission had charged him with drafting, became the FAUD's platform without much controversy. The FAUD also rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat and other Marxist terms and ideas. According to the Business Commission, the congress was attended by 109 delegates representing 111,675 workers, twice as many as were claimed just four and a half months earlier.