[220] E. Thery, _Les Progrès Économiques de la France_ (Paris, 1909), p. 181.
[221] _Journal des Économistes_, Jan., 1911, p. 133.
A diversity of conditions prevails in the industries to which the other revolutionary organizations belong. On the other hand, the so-called reformist organizations, the Federation of Mines, the _Fédération du Livre_, the Federation of Employees, differ in many respects and are determined in their policy by many considerations and conditions which are peculiar to each one of them.
The influence of the revolutionary syndicalists, therefore, can be explained not by special technical conditions, but by general conditions which are economic, political and psychological. To bring out the relation of these conditions to the syndicalist doctrine it is necessary to analyze the latter into its constituent elements and to discuss them one by one.
The fundamental condition which determines the policy of "direct action" is the poverty of French syndicalism. Except the _Fédération du Livre_, only a very few federations pay a more or less regular strike benefit; the rest have barely means enough to provide for their administrative and organizing expenses and can not collect any strike funds worth mentioning. In 1908, for instance, there were 1,073 strikes; of these 837 were conducted by organized workingmen. Only in 46 strikes was regular assistance assured for the strikers, and in 36 cases only was the assistance given in money.[222] The French workingmen, therefore, are forced to fall back on other means during strikes. Quick action, intimidation, _sabotage_, are then suggested to them by their very situation and by their desire to win.
[222] _Statistique des Grèves_, 1909, vi-vii.
The lack of financial strength explains also the enthusiasm and the sentiments of general solidarity which characterize French strikes. An atmosphere of enthusiasm must be created in order to keep up the fighting spirit in the strikers. To the particular struggle in any one trade a wider and more general significance must be attributed; it must be interpreted as a partial manifestation of a more general class-struggle. In this way the determination to struggle on is strengthened in those who strike and a moral justification is created for an appeal to the solidarity of all workingmen. These appeals are made constantly during strikes. Subscription lists are kept in the _Bourses du Travail_, in the Confederal Committee on Strikes, and are opened in the workingmen's and socialist newspapers whenever any big strike occurs.