Syndicalist in the context of "General Confederation of Labour (France)"

Sorelianism is advocacy for the support of the ideology and thinking of Georges Sorel, a French revolutionary syndicalist. Sorelians oppose bourgeois democracy, the developments of the 18th century, the secular spirit, and the French Revolution, while supporting Classicism. A revisionist interpretation of Marxism, Sorel believed that the victory of the proletariat in class struggle could be achieved only through the power of myth and a general strike. To Sorel, the aftermath of class conflict would involve rejuvenation of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

With the seeming failure of syndicalism, Sorel announced his abandonment of socialist literature in 1910, and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce, that "socialism is dead" due to the "decomposition of Marxism". He became a supporter of Charles Maurras-style integral nationalism (maurrassisme) beginning in 1909, which he believed had similar moral aims to syndicalism despite being enemies materially. In this sense, Sorelianism is considered a precursor to fascism. However, Sorel became disillusioned with these ideas with World War I, and from 1918 until his death in 1922, became a supporter of the Russian Revolution and communism, believing them a revival of syndicalism.

Johann Rudolf Rocker (German: [ˈʁɔkɐ]; March 25, 1873 – September 19, 1958) was a German anarchist writer and activist. He was born in Mainz to an artisan family.

His father died when he was a child, and his mother when he was in his teens, so he spent some time in an orphanage. As a youth he worked as a cabin boy on river boats and was then apprenticed as a typographer. He became involved in trade unionism and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) before coming under the influence of anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. With other libertarian socialist youth, he was expelled from the SPD, and his anarchist activism led to him fleeing Germany for Paris, where he came into contact with syndicalist and anarchist ideas and practices. In 1895, he moved to London. Apart from brief spells in Liverpool and elsewhere, he remained in East London for most of the next two decades, acting a key figure in the Yiddish-language anarchist scene there, including editing the Arbeter Fraynd periodical, publishing the key thinkers of anarchism, and organising strikes in the garment industry. In London, he formed a life partnership with Milly Witkop, a Ukraine-born anarchist from a Jewish background. During World War I, he was interned as an enemy alien and at the end the war he was deported to the Netherlands.