Syndicalist Defense Committee (1915)

The Syndicalist Defense Committee (French: Comité de Défense Syndicaliste; CDS) was a French anti-militarist trade union centre of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT). Established in 1915 to provide a syndicalist opposition to World War I, the CDS aimed to end French participation in the war through a general strike. The CDS was largely associated with construction workers' and metalworkers' unions in the Loire department, where anti-war trade unionists frequently organised pacifist strikes in order to improve working conditions and pressure the French government to end the war. These pacifist strikes culminated in May 1918, when the CDS led a general strike of hundreds of thousands of metal workers. The strike was suppressed, their leaders arrested and many striking workers were deployed to the front lines. Members of the CDS led the establishment of the first communist party in France, while the metalworkers' unions went on to form the United General Confederation of Labour (CGTU), a revolutionary splinter of the reformist-led CGT.