The question of sabotage as a weapon in social struggles has come back to the forefront recently. In 2008, the Sarkozy government fantasized about an ultra-left terrorist threat by having the Tarnac group arrested, without the responsibility of the accused in the sabotage of TGV lines attributed to them ever being proven despite all the efforts of the police. More recently, a book by Andreas Malm was titled in its French translation How to sabotage a pipeline (2021) and the Macron government tried in vain to dissolve the Earth Uprisings under the pretext of a risk of eco-terrorism ( 2023).
In practice, some members of the CGT participated in the movement to defend 2023 pensions by carrying out power cuts. They thus revived a tradition that was certainly interrupted, but whose origins date back to the early days of this union, at the very end of the 19th century, recalls historian Dominique Pinsolle, Julien Théry’s guest for this new episode of La Grande H.
In his book entitled When the workers sabotaged. France, United States (1897-1918)published by Agone, D. Pinsolle recounts the emergence of sabotage as a means of union action first in France, at the instigation of the anarchist activist Émile Pouget, then in the United States, at the instigation of the trade unionist Bill Hayworth , convinced by the practice of the French. The CGT goes so far as to provide for the use of this method in its statutes and the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), the revolutionary union of the United States, actively promotes its use, symbolized by the bristling black cat that the we will later identify with anarchism. Before repression fell on activists and organizations commensurate with the effectiveness of the sabotage and the danger it posed to major capitalist interests, there were many successes.
D. Pinsolle underlines the great variety of forms taken by this type of action during what was its golden age, at the beginning of the 20th century. A story rich in lessons for the present, both on the interest and on the dangers and limits of sabotage in social struggles.
Edited by Bérénice Sevestre. A show by Julien Théry.
