How does the CPUSA feel about syndicalism?
The syndicalist movement, originally associated with French radicalism in the 1890s, was a precursor of and also competitor with the founding of the IWW in the early part of the last century. Syndicalism, unlike the IWW, did not seek “One Big Union,” but did see the union struggle as the only place that offered the possibility of victory to the workers. William Z. Foster, later a leading member of our Party, was earlier a syndicalist, traveling around the country in 1912 by riding the rails, promoting what he saw then as a more “pure” syndicalism as an alternative to the IWW. Later he came to reject syndicalism. Syndicalism downplays and even denies the role of politics, political struggle, and all struggles that don’t take place at the point of production. Like the IWW, syndicalism as a movement is a hold-over from earlier periods of struggle, and has long ago ceased to be a real factor on the left, though a few of its ideas are still widespread in sections of the labor movement. In V
