Amiens Charter

Amiens Charter 

the programmatic declaration adopted by the Amiens Congress of the General Confederation of Workers of France in 1906. Drawn up amid the strong upsurge of the working class movement, the Amiens Charter contained positions on the irreconcilable class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the necessity to expropriate the property of the capitalists. However, based on the ideas of anarchosyndicalism, the Amiens Charter recognized the syndicate (trade union) as the sole form of class amalgamation of the workers, repudiated political struggle, and declared the general economic strike to be the means for the overthrow of the capitalist system. One of the most important points of the Amiens Charter was the declaration of the “independence” of the trade unions from political parties. The syndicalist tenets of the Amiens Charter were later used by the opportunists in their struggle against the revolutionary trade-union movement and against its links with the Communist parties.

REFERENCES

Militsyna, T. V. Bor’ba techenii v professional’nom dvizhenii vo Frantsii. Moscow, 1937.
Briua, Zh., and M. Piolo. Ocherki istorii Vseobshchei konfederatsii truda Frantsii. Moscow, 1959. (Translated from French.)

B. L. VUL’FSON