The revolutionary spirit which manifested itself in the conception of the general strike expressed itself also in the resolution of the Congress on the army. This resolution demanded the suppression of permanent armies, and invited the syndicats to establish relations with the workingmen in military service, to invite them to social gatherings and to assist them financially (to establish the so-called _Sou du Soldat_).
The same spirit characterized the report of the Committee which formulated the ideas of the Congress on the "practical means of realizing the international harmony of the workingmen." "Capital," read the report, "in its various forms is international," and it is necessary that labor should also be organized internationally. The slight differences in conditions of life varying from country to country are not important. "The predominating fact everywhere, in all countries, is the division of society into two categories; the producer and the non-producer, the wage-earner and the employer." The report went on to say that the idea of "fatherland" (_patrie_) is a means of protecting the strong against the weak, "an emblem of speculation, of exploitation," "a synonym of property," "a fiction for the workingmen who possess nothing."[119] The practical conclusion of the Committee was to bring together the wage-earners of all countries in an international organization which should be represented by an international secretariat.
[119] _XI Congrès National Corporatif_ (Paris, 1900), p. 205.
During 1900-1 the Confederation displayed a little more activity than before. The National Council employed a permanent employee to attend to the business of the Confederation, at first for two, then for four hours a day at a remuneration of 50 and then 100 francs a month. In December, 1900, the Confederation began also to publish its own weekly, _La Voix du Peuple_. Since 1896 the question of a trade-journal had been on the order of the day. It was discussed at every Congress and various plans were recommended in order to obtain the financial means for a daily. The Congress of Paris, in view of the financial impossibility of starting a daily and recognizing that "it was more than ever necessary to create a revolutionary syndicalist organ," decided to publish a weekly. One of the Committees of the National Council was to attend to it.
