Syndicalism is a political and economic ideology which advocates giving control of both industry and government to labor union federations. Syndicalisme is a French word meaning "trade unionism". This milder version of syndicalism was overshadowed by revolutionary anarcho-syndicalism in the early 20th century, which was most powerful in Spain, but appeared in other parts of the world as well.
A model syndicalist community is as follows. The local unit, the syndicat, would communicate with other syndicats through the bourse de travail (labour exchange). The bourse would handle management and the transfer of commodities.
Syndicalism forms one of the three most common theories of a pre-managed economic and labor structure. It believes, on an ethical basis, that all participants in each organized trade internally share equal ownership of its output and therefore deserve equal earnings and benefits within that particular trade, regardless of position or duty. This contrasts socialism's emphasis on the distribution of output from all different trades to one another as required by each trade, not necessarily considering how those trades organize themselves internally. Both these systems of pre-organized economic structure can theoretically include variations on privatism, unlike the third such pre-arranged egalitarian strand, namely communism. Communism supports the abolition of government-sanctioned private ownership and private earnings in favor of making all property legally public, and therefore solely the responsibility of the state and/or the community.
Instances of syndicalism in power, during the Spanish Revolution or the 1956 Hungarian Revolution rapidly approach the economic organisation of communism, often within weeks of syndicalists seizing control of social production.
Syndicalists often form alliances with other workers' movements, including socialism, communism, and anarchism.
Syndicalist unions began to become a significant factor in the decade before the First World War, as both a reflection of the ongoing class struggle and as the result of the efforts of consciously political minorities critical of socialist parliamentarism.
The syndicalist movement was certainly attractive to many anarchists who, having seen their influence wane following the period of "propaganda by the deed" (the 1890s), saw in syndicalisms combativity and distrust of parliamentary methods a natural home for their politics.
Whilst the Italian revolutionary syndicalists flirting with extreme nationalism from 1914 onwards, demanding that Italy join the imperialist bloodbath (a demand totally opposed, to their great credit, by the anarcho-syndicalists of the Union Sindicale Italiana) is probably the most graphic example of syndicalist political alliances, many others existed.
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