Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire

Revolutionary Syndicalist General Confederation of Labour
Confédération Générale du Travail – Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire
AbbreviationCGT-SR
PredecessorSyndicalist Defense Committee
SuccessorNational Confederation of Labour
Established16 November 1926 (1926-11-16)
Dissolved1939 (1939)
TypeNational trade union confederation
Headquarters
Location
Membership6,000 (1936)
General Secretary
Lucien Huart
Spokesperson
Pierre Besnard
Publication
Le Combat Syndicaliste
AffiliationsInternational Workers' Association

The Revolutionary Syndicalist General Confederation of Labour (French: Confédération Générale du Travail – Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire; CGT-SR) was a French national trade union centre. It emerged out of the libertarian faction of the Unitary General Confederation of Labour (CGTU) and split away after it came under the control of the French Communist Party (PCF). The CGT-SR was established in 1926, largely on the basis of artisanal unions in southern France, and became the country's third and smallest trade union confederation. Its driving ideology was revolutionary syndicalism, which rejected political parties and upheld decentralisation as an organisational model.

From its foundation, the CGT-SR was a stagnant and isolated organisation. Its exclusionary ideology and political sectarianism alienated many workers, who preferred to instead join the communist-led CGTU, the reformist CGT, or unaffiliated autonomous unions. The CGT-SR rejected collaboration with non-anarchist groups and, following the reunification of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) in 1936, it refused to merge into it. The CGT-SR received a boost in membership following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and took a leading role in organising solidarity campaigns for the Spanish anarchists. But it soon came into conflict with other anarchist groups, including the Spanish CNT, which it publicly criticised for joining the government of Spain. By the end of the war, the CGT-SR had isolated itself from others in the anarchist movement, compounding its pre-existing isolation from the labour movement. Following the Liberation of France, it was reorganised into the National Confederation of Labour.