[66] Seilhac, _Les Congrès Ouvriers_, p. 124.
These acts, while promoting the organization of the syndicats, impressed upon the latter a political character. The syndicats were utilized for electoral purposes, were made to serve the interests of the socialist group to which they adhered, and were drawn into the whirlpool of political dissensions and rivalry. The effect was destructive for the syndicats. The acrimonious and personal polemics of the socialist leaders bred ill-feeling among their workingmen followers; the invective and abuse filling the periodical literature of the socialist groups found an echo in the assemblies of the workingmen; the mutual hatreds separating politically Allemanists from Guesdists, Guesdists from anarchists, were carried over into the syndicats which were hindered thereby in their growth or entirely driven to disintegration. The adherence of a syndicat to any one socialist group generally repelled the non-socialists and enraged the adherents of other socialist groups, and often led to the organization of rival syndicats in the same trade and locality. The literature of the French labor movement is full of instances of the disorganizing effect which these political dissensions exerted upon the syndicats.
Economic conditions, however, were impelling the workingmen to union. Since the Commune, the industrial development of France had gone on without interruption, concentrating the economic powers of the employing classes. In the face of the economic organizations of the employers, the scattered and isolated syndicats were of little significance, and the necessity of a larger combination made itself felt. Besides, in 1884, a new law on syndicats was passed. This law authorized the formation of syndicats under certain conditions of which article 4 was obnoxious to the workingmen. This article 4 of the new law made it obligatory for every syndicat to send in the names and addresses of its administrators to the municipal authorities. In Paris they had to be sent to the Prefect of the Police. The workingmen thought that this condition would subject them to the mercy of the police and of the employers, and they wanted to manifest their attitude to the new law.