Pierre Monatte (15 January 188127 June 1960) was a French trade unionist, a founder of the ''

Confédération générale du travail The General Confederation of Labour (french: Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions. It is ...

'' (CGT, Generation Confederation of Labour) at the beginning of the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...

, and founder of its journal ''

La Vie Ouvrière LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

'' (Workers' Life) on 5 October 1909. Monatte has been considered one of the great figures of

revolutionary syndicalism Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...

Life

Monatte was born on 15 January 1881.

Alphonse Merrheim Alphonse Adolphe Merrheim (7 May 1871 – 23 October 1923) was a French copper smith and trade union leader. Early years Alphonse Adolphe Merrheim was born on 7 May 1871 in La Madeleine, Nord, a suburb of Lille. He became a coppersmith, and adopt ...

arrived in Paris in 1904, and soon afterward, he met Monatte at the office of ''Pages Libres''. The two men would work together to launch ''

(The Worker's Life)''. In 1914 Monatte and

Alfred Rosmer Alfred Rosmer (born Alfred Griot, 23 August 1877 – 6 May 1964) was an American-born French Communist political activist and historian who was a leading member of the Comintern. Rosmer is best remembered as a political associate of Leon Trotsky a ...

led the internationalist core of ''La Vie ouvrière (The Worker's Life)''. Monatte often referred himself to

Fernand Pelloutier Fernand-Léonce-Émile Pelloutier (1 October 1867, in Paris – 13 March 1901, in Sèvres) was a French anarchist and syndicalist. He was the leader of the ''Bourses du Travail'', a major French trade union, from 1895 until his death in 1901. H ...

and did not disguise his

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

sympathies although he drifted away from that current of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

after the

International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam took place from 24 August to 31 August 1907. It gathered delegates from 14 countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît B ...

in 1907. There, Monatte argued in particular with Errico Malatesta concerning the methods of organisation. Invoking the 1906

Charter of Amiens The Charter of Amiens (french: Charte d'Amiens) was adopted at the 9th Congress of the ''Confédération générale du travail'' (CGT) French trade-union, which took place in Amiens in October 1906. Its main proposal was the separation between the ...

, which established the principle of "political neutrality" of trade unions, Monatte considered syndicalism itself to be revolutionary, but Malatesta advocated the creation of some sort of anarchist organisation to superate internal conflicts among the workers' movement itself. Monatte was the first secretary general of the ''

Comités syndicalistes révolutionnaires The Revolutionary Syndicalist Committees (french: Comités Syndicalistes Révolutionnaires, CSR) were a trade-unionist organization created in 1919 by Pierre Monatte inside the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération Générale du Trav ...

'' (Revolutionary Syndicalist Committees). At the CGT's first postwar congress, held in Lyon from 15 to 21 September 1919, Monatte was among the leaders of the minority, with

Joseph Tommasi Joseph Charles Tommasi (April 15, 1951 – August 15, 1975) was an American Neo-Nazi who founded the National Socialist Liberation Front. He advocated extremism and armed guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government and what he called its "Je ...

Raymond Péricat Raymond Péricat (23 January 1873 – 13 July 1958) was a militant French trade unionist and communist. During World War I (1914–18) he took an internationalist and pacifist position. After the war he tried to establish a radical Communist party ...

and

Gaston Monmousseau Gaston René Léon Monmousseau (17 January 1883 – 11 July 1960) was a French railway worker, trade union leader, politician and author, from a rural working-class background. He became an anarcho-syndicalist, then a communist, and played a lead ...

and denounced the CGT membership in the Amsterdam International of Labor Unions. They claimed that the CGT majority had broken with the principles of syndicalism and lost faith in revolution by dealing with the government. The minority wanted the CGT to join the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

. He was an opponent of the first World War. In 1923, Monatte joined the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...

(PCF) and was close to

Boris Souvarine Boris Souvarine (1 November 1895 – 1 November 1984), also known as Varine, was a French Marxist, communist activist, essayist and journalist. A founding member of the French Communist Party, Souvarine is noted for being the only non-Russian com ...

and

. Along with them, he was excluded at the end of 1924 of the party at the occasion of an internal purge against

Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...

of the party, which supported Leo Trotsky. Then, Monatte founded in January 1925 the journal '' La Révolution prolétarienne'' (The Proletarian Revolution), along with Robert Louzon. The journal enjoyed an appreciated audience among trade unionists and left-wing activists during the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...

Bibliography

Colette Chambelland, ''Pierre Monatte, Une autre voix syndicaliste'', coll.: Part des Hommes, Éd. de l'Atelier, 1999,

References

Sources

* * *

External links

Pierre Monatte
on the Marxist Archives (texts, etc.)
Journal ''La Révolution prolétarienne''

Several texts on and by Monatte
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monatte, Pierre 1881 births 1960 deaths Anti–World War I activists French Communist Party members French socialists French trade union leaders Members of the General Confederation of Labour (France) Revolutionary Syndicalism French magazine founders