¹ For a full discussion of the congress and the controversy surrounding it, see Wayne, Westergard-Thorpe, “Towards a Syndicalist International: The 1913 London Congress”. in: International Review of Social History, XXIII (1978), pp. 33–78.Google Scholar

² Founded in 1903, by 1913 the ISNTUC grouped affiliates in nineteen countries representing over seven million workers, Its Zürich conference in September 1913 renamed the ISNTUC the International Federation of Trade Unions.

³ See de Santillan, D. A., “La Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores”, in: La Revista Internacional Anarquista, I (1924–1925), pp. 61–64, 86–90, 108–11;Google Scholar Arthur, Lehning, “Del sindicalismo revolucionario al anarcosindicalismo”, in: Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico, No 58–60 (1977), pp. 55–75;Google Scholar Wayne, Westergard-Thorpe, “Syndicalist Internationalism and Moscow, 1919–1922: The Breach”, in: Canadian Journal of History – Annales Canadiennes d'Histoire, XIV (1979), pp. 199–234.Google Scholar

⁴ Jack Tanner Papers, Box 5/2, Nuffield College Library, Oxford. For their complete co-operation I gratefully acknowledge a debt to the staff of Nuffield College Library, and particularly to M. J. Critchlow, Archivist and Assistant Librarian.

⁵ Some syndicalist newspapers such as L'Internazionale (Parma) and Die Einigkeit (Berlin) were able to publish abbreviated versions of the agenda on 27 September, the day the congress opened, and De Arbeid (Amsterdam) as early as 24 September, but in no case did the foreign mandating organizations have an opportunity seriously to consider it before dispatching their delegates.

⁶ See, for example, Joh., Sassenbach, Fünfundzwanzig Jahre internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung (Amsterdam, 1926), pp. 17–18 et passim.Google Scholar

⁷ The unnumbered cover page of the agenda bears the handwritten word “Commission” three times, with various lines indicating that items 2 through 7 were referred to the resolution committee appointed by the congress. A large X has been drawn through items 8 and 9. In the end, the congress formally dealt only with items 1, 2 and 6.

⁸ Two pages, precisely those dealing with “Theory and Tactics”, are missing from Tanner's copy of the agenda. Under this rubric the congress, initially centring its deliberations on a submission from the Dutch delegation, drew up a declaration of syndicalist principles. The final draft (quoted in Westergard-Thorpe, , “Towards a Syndicalist International”, loc. cit., p. 64) shows unmistakable signs of having been largely modelled upon a statement of principles earlier submitted by the National Federation of Building-Trades Workers (Bouwvakarbeiders) of Holland, which also submitted items concerning an international language and newspaper to the agenda. The two missing pages therefore apparently contained the Bouwvakarbeiders' declaration of principles, published prior to the congress in De Arbeid, 3 September 1913, and reproduced in the Appendix.Google Scholar

⁹ The most complete account of the various national reports is that given in De Arbeid, 4, 8 and 11 October 1913, but see also La Protesta (Buenos Aires), 29 October and 5 November, and Solidaridad Obrera (Barcelona), 16 October.

¹⁰ Though antimilitarism was not discussed on the congress floor, Fritz Kater of the Freie Vereinigung deutscher Gewerkschaften, co-president of the congress, observed in his closing remarks that the syndicalists, once sufficiently organized, would make war impossible. Der Pionier (Berlin), 15 October 1913. The issue apparently came up in committee, however, for the Dutch militant Christiaan Cornelissen, a central figure in the congress, later informed Max Nettlau that factionalism had precluded consensus on a resolution against militarism. Nettlau, Unpublished Manuscript, 1895–1914, III B, pp. 604–05, lnternationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. Gustav Sjöström, editor of Syndikalisten (Malmö), the newspaper of the Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, later (8 November 1913) declared the failure of the congress to act on the question of antimilitarism to have disappointed the Swedish syndicalists.

¹¹ Regarding Brazil, the special law referred to here by the Confederaçāo Operária Brasileira is that of 1907, which provided the government wide latitude in expelling foreign militants, the mainstay of the labour movement. Anor, Butler Macia, Expulsāo de Estrangeiros (Rio de Janeiro, 1953), pp. 37–38,Google Scholar reproduces the text of the law. Brazilian elites favoured deportation of foreign activists over domestic imprisonment as “quicker, more efficient, and less liable to be reversed. Moreover, and very important, the government did not have to prove its case to deport; accusations sufficed.” Sheldon, L. Maram, “The Immigrant and the Brazilian Labor Movement, 1890–1920”, in: Essays Concerning the Socioeconomic History of Brazil and Portuguese India, ed. by Dauril, Alden and Warren, Dean (Gainesville, 1977), p. 195.Google Scholar See also, for a brief account of the deportation legislation as an attack upon the Brazilian labour movement, Edgard, Carone, A Republica Velha, I: Instituiçōes e classes sociais, 2nd ed. (Sāo Paulo, 1972), pp. 237–40.Google Scholar By 1913 the situation had grown worse, for in January the government decreed that foreigners resident in Brazil for two years or with Brazilian wives or, if widowed, with Brazilian children, protected from deportation under the original law, were no longer exempt. The Confederaçāo, hoping to counteract Brazilian efforts to attract immigrants, charged some deported militants with publicizing abroad the government's deportation legislation and practices. John, W. F. Dulles, Anarchists and Communists in Brazil, 1900–1935 (Austin, 1973), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar It clearly wished to use the London congress for the same purpose. Two Italian delegates at London had persnally experienced the antipathy of the Brazilian government towards foreign militants. Edmondo Rossoni had been deported in 1908 for attempting to establish an Escuela Moderna. Víctor, Alba, Historia del movimiento obrero en América Latina (Mexico City, 1964), p. 101.Google Scholar Prior to the introduction of the 1907 law, Alceste De Ambris had fled Brazil to avoid a prison sentence. Renzo, De Felice, Sindacalismo rivoluzionario e Fiumanesimo nel carteggio De Ambris – D'Annunzio (1919–1922) (Brescia, 1966), p. 13.Google Scholar

¹² The type of organization to be established elicited a lengthy and lively debate. L'Action Ouvrière (Liège), 1 September 1913, had rightly anticipated that a crucial issue would be whether to form an International or simply a Correspondence Bureau. While one group of delegates, forcefully represented by De Ambris of Italy, proposed that only an International Syndicalist Information Bureau be established, the German and Dutch delegates urged the formation of a full-fledged Syndicalist International. The possibility of schism within the French CGT following the establishment of a second trade- union International played an important role in the debate. The Dutch-German group eventually yielded, though with the understanding that a second congress to be held in 1914 or 1915 (and prevented by the war) would return to the issue. They nevertheless succeeded in securing Amsterdam as the seat of the International Bureau against De Ambris's proposal of Paris. On the deb, see Westergard-Thorpe, , “Towards a Syndicalist International”, pp. 65–70.Google Scholar A number of delegates, believing the distinction between a Bureau and an International to be no more than a tactical ploy, took the formation of the Bureau to constitute the birth of “the new Red International”. Syndikalisten, 18 October 1913; see also Les, Temps Nouveaux (Paris), 18 10.Google Scholar

¹³ The decision to establish a national syndicalist organization in Spain had already been taken in 1910, though the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo had been banned a year later. A pioneer organizer of the national Confederación, José Negre, represented the Catalonian organization at the congress. The Confederación Nacional emerged from clandestinity in 1914.

¹⁴ The reference here and in the preceding Swedish entry is to the Bulletin International du Mouvement Syndicaliste, edited by Christiaan Cornelissen, which had emerged following the 1907 Amsterdam Anarchist Congress, in which the merits of syndicalism had been debated. As major financial backers, the Dutch and Swedish syndicalists were justified in making these proposals about a privately managed periodical. Originally funded by the French, German, Dutch and Bohemian movements, in the period preceding the congress the Nationaal Arbeids Secretariaat of Holland, the Arbetares Centralorganisation of Sweden, the Freie Vereinigung deutscher Gewerkschaften of Germany, and the French CGT financed Cornelissen's Bulletin, which also received occasional contributions from the American Industrial Workers of the World. Comelissen, , “Strijd, lief en leed in de Oude Socialistische Beweging en de Vakorganisaties: Persoonlijke herinneringen”, p. 441, International Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis. The day after the congress closed the Dutch and German delegates met with Cornelissen to discuss the previous financing of the Bulletin, Die Einigkeit (Berlin), 11 October 1913. Cornelissep later terminated his own Bulletin when the International Syndicalist Information Bureau at Amsterdam appointed by the congress began publishing a Bulletin with the same title (first issue: 1–5 April 1914). Cornelissen edited the Bureau's Bulletin, “Strijd, lief en leed”, p. 439.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Guy Bowman voiced his opinion concerning the relative linguistic merits of the two languages in a pre-congress interview: “Some of the delegates propose that Esperanto should be adopted. and some Ido. I am not much in love with Ido because one cannot swear in that language.” Pall Mall Gazette, 27 September 1913. Lack of time prevented discussion of an international language either on the floor of the assembly or in committee. Despite the apparent neutrality of its submission, the Swedish organization strongly favoured Ido, and Syndikalisten, 8 November, much lamented the failure of the congress to take up this point of the agenda.

¹⁶ A “proof copy” of the delegates' list (Tanner Papers) indicates that the congress organizers anticipated that A. Wroblewski would represent the Polish Revolutionary Trade Union Group, though he did not appear. Shortly before the congress convened, Les Temps Nouveaux, 20 September, apprised its Polish readers that Dr Augustin Wroblewski had recently been “interné comme fou”, and warned them against him as “un homme qui a cessé d'être responsable de ses actes”. It specifically urged them to disregard the flyers circulated by Wroblewski characterizing a number of the most reliable and active members of the Polish movement as police spies and agents provocateurs.

¹⁷ Read “in direct.”