[152] An intermediate form of _sabotage_ is that known as _sabotage à bouche ouverte_ (_sabotage_ of the open mouth). It consists in the disclosure of conditions generally withheld from the public, such as conditions in hotel-kitchens and restaurants, methods of weighing and measuring in stores, practices followed by druggists, frauds resorted to by contractors and builders, etc.
From this form of _sabotage_ it is but a short step to the most aggressive and violent kind which finds expression in the deliberate and open disorganization of machinery. This form of _sabotage_ has nothing in common with the destruction of machinery practiced by unorganized workers during the early stages of the capitalist régime. It aims not at the destruction of the machine as a means of production, but at the temporary disability of the machine during strikes for the purpose of preventing employers to carry on production with the help of strikebreakers. Even in this most aggressive form, _sabotage_ may involve very little violence. The syndicalists strongly condemn any act of _sabotage_ which may result in the loss of life.
Such are the "direct" methods of struggle against employers. But the revolutionary syndicalists have another enemy, the State, and the struggle against the latter is another aspect of "direct action."
The State appears to the syndicalists as the political organization of the capitalist class. Whether monarchist, constitutional, or republican, it is one in character, an organization whose function it is to uphold and to protect the privileges of the property-owners against the demands of the working-class. The workingmen are, therefore, necessarily forced to hurl themselves against the State in their efforts toward emancipation, and they cannot succeed until they have broken the power of the State.
The struggle against the State, like the struggle against the employers, must be carried on directly by the workingmen themselves. This excludes the participation of the syndicats in politics and in electoral campaigning. The parliamentary system is a system of representation opposed in principle to "direct action," and serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, for the management of which it is particularly suited. The workingmen can derive no benefit from it. The parliamentary system breeds petty, self-seeking politicians, corrupts the better elements that enter into it and is a source of intrigues and of "wire-pulling." The so-called representatives of the workingman do not and cannot avoid the contagious influence of parliament. Their policy degenerates into bargaining, compromising and collaboration with the bourgeois political parties and weakens the class-struggle.