ABSTRACT
Everyone can agree that an organization which ideologically defends anarcho-syndicalism, organizationally possesses a federative structure without a strike fund and, on the shopfloor, is extremely militant and strike-prone can be defined as revolutionary–syndicalist. Syndicalism was not only an international phenomenon, but also an internationalist movement. The organizatorial aspects of syndicalism have suffered from a peculiar neglect. Admittedly there is an extensive literature about the organizational conceptions of syndicalist leaders and theoreticians, but it has rarely been asked how the organizations actually functioned in everyday life. It would be interesting to compare the syndicalist movements with the newer radical labour movements in countries without a developed welfare state, such as the Polish Solidarnosc or the movement of metalworkers, the urban poor and landless peasants in Brazil. The greatest breakthrough in syndicalist research has been the ‘discovery’ of syndicalism’s gendered nature.
