The French Anarchist Labor Movement and «La Vie Ouvrière,» 1909-1914

Pierre Monatte (1881-1960) was 29 years old when he met with a small group of French anarchists in a Paris apartment and decided to publish a bi-weekly magazine which he named -La Vie Ouvriere-. The year was 1909, and the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement was perceived as floundering in a quagmire of economic reformism and political opportunism. The revolutionary syndicalists who came thogether at the office of -la Vie Ouvriere- sought (1) to promote the anarchist doctrine of -direct action;- (2) to combat the effects of militarism, nationalism, and authoritarianism; and, (3) to ultimately replace the political economy of capitalism with a socialist economy governed by the producers themselves. The core members of -La Vie Ouvriere- found direction in the slogan of the First International Workingmen's Association, which was founded in London in 1864: -The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves-. Until the outbreak of the First World War, this was the project of the French Anarchist Labor Movement and its organ, -La Vie Ouvriere-."