ith
his little band to attack the slave-owning aristocracy of the South, he
became the forerunner of our terrible Civil War. It was the same spirit
that moved the French trade unionists. Although pitiably weak in numbers
and poor in funds, they decided to stop all parleyings with the enemy
and to fire the first gun.

The socialist congress in London was held in July, and the French
trade-union congress at Tours was held in September of the same year.
The anarchists were out in their full strength, prepared to make
reprisals on the socialists. It was after declaring: "The conquest of
political power is a chimera,"[4] that Guerard launched forth in his
fiery argument for the revolutionary general strike: "The partial
strikes fail because the workingmen become demoralized and succumb under
the intimidation of the employers, protected by the government. The
general strike will last a short while, and its repression will be
impossible; as to intimidation, it is still less to be feared. The
necessity of defending the factories, workshops, manufactories, stores,
etc., will scatter and disperse the army.... And then, in the fear that
the strikers may damage the railways, the signals, the works of art, the
government will be obliged to protect the 39,000 kilometers of railroad
lines by drawing up the troops all along them. The 300,000 men of the
active army, charged with the surveillance of 39 million meters, will be
isolated from one another by 130 meters, and this can be done only on
the condition of abandoning the protection of the depots, of the
stations, of the factories, etc. ... and of abandoning the employers to
themselves, thus leaving the field free in the large cities to the
rebellious workingmen. The principal force of the general strike
consists in its power of imposing itself. A strike in one branch of
industry must involve other branches. The general strike cannot be
decreed in advance; it will burst forth suddenly; a strike of the
railway men, for instance, if declared, will be the signal for the
general strike. It will be the duty of militant workingmen, when this
signal is given, to make their comrades in the trade unions leave their
work. Those who continue to work on that day will be compelled, or
forced, to quit.... The general strike will be the Revolution, peaceful
or not."[5]

Here is a new program of action, several points of which are worthy of
attention. It is clear that the general strike is here co