Even the statement of M. Berth must be somewhat modified. The theorists of the _Mouvement Socialiste_ have never by any means been the authorized "spokesmen" of the revolutionary syndicalists of the General Confederation. They were no more than a group of writers who, watching the syndicalist movement from the outside, were stimulated by it to their reflections and ideas. They thought they found in the syndicalist movement "a truly original force capable of refreshing the socialist conception", and they formulated their ideas on the subject. They never took any part in the movement, and could not feel themselves its representatives.
What then was their influence? In general, the same as that of other socialist writers. They were and are read by the French workingmen just as Kropotkin, Jaurès, Proudhon and other contemporary or former socialist and anarchist writers, and as many non-socialist writers are. Naturally, some workingmen came more under their influence, than under that of others; and such workingmen may be disposed to look upon them as their theoretical guides and leaders.
But even the latter interpretation is by no means applicable to all the theories of M. Sorel, for the main ideas of Sorel seem fundamentally incapable of inspiring a movement of large masses. The theory of the "social myth" may be original and attractive, but if accepted by the workingmen could not inspire them to action. If "images of battles" are important for the "rising classes" as an impelling force, they can be so only so long as they are naïvely and fully believed in. The worm of reflection must not touch them. The "men longing for deliverance" must believe that the future will be just as they picture it, otherwise their enthusiasm for these pictures would find no nourishment. Should they come to realize the "utopian" and "mythical" character of their constructions they would abandon them.
The pessimistic basis of M. Sorel's _Weltanschauung_ may appeal to literary men, to students of philosophy and to individuals longing for a moral theory. It can not be assimilated by a mass "moving toward emancipation." When one reads the original documents of the syndicalist movement, he is struck, on the contrary, by the powerful torrent of optimism by which the movement is carried along. Only a strong belief in a "speedy emancipation" created the enthusiasm for the idea of the general strike. There may be a subconscious pessimism back of this optimism, but its appearance in the field of clear consciousness would have been destructive for the movement.