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THE REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALIST INTERNATIONAL

History

The RSI's history can be traced to several earlier working-class movements and socialist intellectual traditions. About ninety years ago, an assembly of labor leaders, professors, and other sympathizers founded the Syndicalist International as a space of exchange, cooperation, and mutual aid. The Syndintern movement began thrive in universities, poor communities, and among disfranchised groups in the North more generally. In response, some states and corporations began to engage in repression: companies hired thugs, courts passed injunctions, troops were deployed, and syndicalist parties were banned.

This provoked a split in Syndintern, between Gradualists (who believed they could reform existing systems over time) and Radicals (who believed direct action – and violent rebellion if necessary – were the only sure methods of attaining collective liberation). Tensions brewed for years until finally, the International narrowly voted not to endorse or support a general strike in Picardie-Wallonia. There and then, those who had voted in favor of the resolution abandoned the rest and formed their own organization, the Revolutionary Syndicalist International. Their base of support was particularly strong in the province of Brouges due to two factors: (1) A very dense, radicalized proletariat that had managed to elect sympathetic local representatives but remained largely dissatisfied with progress, and (2) a disturbingly large influx of refugees from Picardie-Wallonia in the wake of massive reprisals following the General Strike.

Shortly after forming, the RSI began organizing People's Militias wherever possible, clandestinely funneling arms and agents into the workplaces of member unions. In Brouges, many of the militias rallied together and formed what would become the RSI's standing army, the Revolutionary Guard. It also began to step up its investment in Mutual Aid Societies, soup kitchens, and Syndicalist newspapers.

Meanwhile, the original SI pursued a program of electoral politics at the expense of their member unions. They managed to win many positions, including some very prominent ones, but seemed incapable of actually instituting meaningful reforms. Slowly but surely, its membership defected to the RSI. The SI, in turn, grew even more gradualist and complacent to the point of hardly being better than traditional parties in the eyes of many.

When the Principality of Naarden was overthrown by massive civil disobedience and rebellion began to spout elsewhere in the region, the Grand Duke of Brouges feared for the stability of his own constitutional regime. He decided that he had allowed the Syndicalists a free hand for too long, ordering full military mobilization to crush the People's Militias in the city and intervene on behalf of his neighbor monarchs. But it was too late: Over the last two decades, Brouges had turned into a Revolutionary Syndicalist stronghold right under the Duke's nose. They had planned for this kind of situation.

The Duke's declaration pushed many fence-sitters into the revolutionary camp to the point where virtually no one reported for draft duty, and from the beginning even the professional army struggled with defections and supply shortages. In one of the many great ironies of history, the Grand Duke of Brouges signed his own death warrant by calling for war mobilization. The decision set off a whole network of planned uprisings in the whole province, where armed workers and peasants re-appropriated industry from their bosses and fields from their landlords. Furthermore, Revolutionary Guard revealed itself as a far more professional, far better-equipped force than the Ducal Guard had expected. Within weeks, the Ducal Palace was under siege. Rather than face certain defeat at the hands of the urban population, a large group of surviving soldiers killed their officers and turned over the royal family. The royals were given a “fair” trial in which they were sentenced to death for heinous crimes against the people of Brouges.

Twenty-one years ago, on a cool Autumn morning, the entire Ducal family was lined up and shot to death by a firing squad of their own former guards. That afternoon, the province voted in a referendum to join Syndintern as a special territory under direct RWC governance. After all, Congress and the Revolutionary Guard were already based there.

In the coming decades, the RSI would continue to sponsor rebellions in the North, supplying arms, food, medical supplies, and even direct intervention forces. This was instrumental in the formation of the Noordelijk Bondsrepubliek Vakbonden, particularly in the old kingdoms of Vallonia-Picardie and Flamardie. More recently and more starkly, the International supported the bloody revolution in Dereham. Although the brand new Federal Republic and many unions within have not yet officially joined Syndintern, the process is expected to go through very soon.

Race: Interspecies, de facto mostly human

Form of Government: Union Democracy

The fundamental political unit in the RSI is, naturally, the labor union. To qualify for membership in the International, a union must adhere to certain principles: Gender equality, no racial or ethnic exclusion, democratic internal structure, and a commitment to the liberation of all workers from capitalist-imperialist hegemony. However, this leaves plenty of room for difference, particularly in the organizational base and the exact definition of “union.” The RSI includes trade unions, industrial unions, pan-industrial unions, locale-based unions, ideological unions, underground working-class political parties, radical peasant assemblies, and even autonomous mountain tribes.

The central political body is the Revolutionary Workers' Congress. Every union of the International is guaranteed at least one non-voting representative in the Council. To qualify for a voting representative, a union must have enough membership: For unions in already-liberated territory, the threshold is 1,00,000 members, but unions in non-liberated territories need only 50,000. From there, a union's representation rises proportional to membership. Thus, small RSI unions have strong incentives to federate into larger ones.

Unions have a great deal of local autonomy in the RSI system. The RWC has only a few direct authorities over them: Calling them to arms (each union must mobilize a People's Militia), declaring particular institutions or individuals Enemies of the People (unions are banned from dealing with them), taxing a share of union dues for the Central Budget, and deciding on acceptance or expulsion from the RSI. Furthermore, with the approval of all unions (including non-voting ones) in a province or tied to a particular good, Congress can call General Strikes and Boycotts.

The International also has its own territory, the great industrial metropolis of Brouges and the surrounding small towns and countryside. For the residents in this territory, the RSI itself is their union. Using its territory as well as part of the Central Budget, Syndintern maintains its own professional army: The Revolutionary Guard. Besides defending Brouxels and its vicinity, the Guard acts as an intervention force to aid fellow revolutionaries around the world.

In the last two decades, with the rise of Revolutionary Republics, the RSI has developed a system for associating nation-states with the International. The government(s) involved must agree to arrange for all workers to have free and fair elections to join or form Syndintern member-unions (if they are not already a part), preserve and protect the democratic socialist management of all workplaces (via cooperatives or union bureaucracies), facilitate the formation of city and regional Work Exchanges, and adhere to the fundamental principles of the International. In return, the RSI promises to help defend the nation-state's territorial integrity to the best of its ability, allow it access to the Central Work Exchange and the benefits of a transnational integrated economy, and provide development aid to the nation.

Within the RSI, in addition to ad hoc interest groups for unions sharing an industry or region, there are several political parties. Most unions and union representatives are not affiliated with a particular party; nonetheless, three in particular drive much of the RSI's internal debate. The Communist Party seeks to progressively integrate member unions into a unified, more centralized “One Big Union” of Syndintern. The Anarcho-Syndicalist Front, on the other hand, seeks to protect and even extend the autonomy of member-unions, as well as to provide smaller multi-union government structures like Regional Councils and Industry Councils. Finally, the Social Reformist Party seeks to maintain more or less the status quo as far as centralization and structure, preferring to deal with any issues that come up on a case-by-case basis. The SRP is also known for its particularly vocal anti-racist, anti-patriarchal programs and rhetoric (though all of Syndintern, at least nominally, adheres to these principles).

Current Leader(s)

– RSI Spokesperson Jeannette Jaurès:
Official top representative of Syndintern to the international community. Jaurès is a Vallard from a middle-class artisan family. A stellar student, she managed to complete an elite university education in the old Kingdom of Vallonia-Picardie. During this time, she was exposed to Syndicalist literature and progressively alienated by the elitism she encountered around her. Instead of moving on to clerical work as expected, she joined Syndintern as a low-level union organizer in the cities. Six years later, she fled in the face of persecution following the failed General Strike, which she had helped to organize. She first rose to prominence in the RSI through her involvement in successful anti-squalor campaigns, acting in solidarity (and as a renter herself) to force landlords to improve conditions as well as to kick out landlords in favor of cooperative apartment complexes. After participating in the Siege of the Palace as a People's Militia officer, she became known as a thoughtful, charismatic, and well-spoken leader in the Social Reformist Party. Jaurès has now been Spokesperson for over twenty years, an aging figure generally respected and admired by all.

– RWC Chair Emma Goossens:
Facilitator and representative in charge of the agenda for Congress, in some ways like a parliamentary head of government. Goossens is a mixed Flamard-Naardener mechanic from a family in Flamardie with deep blue-collar roots. She was involved in countless struggles ranging from banal to radical, and developed a reputation for always being on the scene to support her fellow workers wherever she could be useful. She was surprisingly mobile for her social position as a working woman, regularly moving across national boundaries for work and political engagement. She was a key organizer in the Grand General Strike of Cournaille, which (unlike in Vallonia-Picardie) eventually toppled the entire regime by transitioning the economy de facto from feudalism and capitalism to worker self-management. She was elected to the RWC shortly afterwards with overwhelming support in Cournaille and Naarden. She was elected from within Congress as Chair nine years ago; she is currently near the end of her second term.

– Revolutionary Guard Marshal Quinn Caradec:
Top commander of the Revolutionary Guard, elected by the soldiers from a pool of qualified officers. One of the only high-profile RSI leaders originally from the Dereham Kingdom. He was originally an officer in the King's Army, an unusual case of a factory-working young man who enlisted and rose through the ranks against all expectations. However, after making contacts with several RSI members and reading some rather insubordinate literature, he began to plot against the monarchy in secret. Unfortunately, his scheming was revealed, and he was forced to flee to Brouges with a few loyal companions. He joined the Revolutionary Guard in its early days, and he eventually won enough respect and trust from his fellow soldiers to be elected Marshal, a position he has now held for twelve years. He has taken the last name of his wife and fellow officer, Emma Caradec.

– Gaëlle Charpentier, Maire de Brouges:
Mayor of the City of Brouges, de facto the highest authority in the direct RSI territories (the province of Brouges). Charpentier, a young Cournaillais baker who enjoyed a brief but successful career as a folk musician, was recently elected mayor and has since proven herself a master politician with an iron will. A Social Reformist Party activist who only recently moved to the city, she and her supporters managed to usurp the longstanding grip of the Communist Party over Brouges municipal politics.

Notable Figures

– Communist Party Chair and UIW President Brianne Corre: A middle-aged Cournaillais textile factory worker from Arzon, she became active in the Party after her factory joined the enormous United Industrial Workers, a Syndintern member-union. She was a vocal supporter of the economic and political integration of Syndintern, citing the success of the Work Exchange the UIW helped to set up in Arzon. A natural networker and negotiator, Corre rose in influence until she achieved a unique feat: Being the head of a political party and a powerful union. Since she was elected to office and began appointing loyal cabinets and functionaries fourteen years ago, the UIW has grown to become the largest single union in the International and nearly inseperable from the Communist Party.

– Anarcho-Syndicalist Front Spokesperson Alice Willems: Coming from a Naardener farming family that moved to Brouges after a string of poor harvests, Willems is one of few influential Syndintern members from a strictly rural background. She is also one of relatively few prominent anarcho-syndicalists in the province of Brouges. At seventy years old, Willems has seen even more of the RSI's history than Jeannette Jaurès. She was among the first radicals to leave the original Syndicalist International and become a founding member of the RSI. She remains in good health to this day, but is rather mysterious and even reclusive for such an important politician. Willems refuses to leave her family farm (part of a larger cooperative encompassing a few old homesteads) during the Harvest season and the first plantings in Spring. But despite these absences, she is very highly respected for her role in organizing the first rural People's Militias and cooperativizing the fields. She is known as a very thoughtful, deliberate personality in RSI politics who chooses her words and presentation very carefully.

– Social Reformist Party Chair Jacques Louhérou: One of few Vallard radicals to remain in Vallonia-Picardie during the great repression following the General Strike, Louhéro actually began his career as a Moderate. He was a railroad worker, part-time engineer and part-time track-layer, loyal to the old Syndicalist International until a local railroad strike was set off over a wage dispute. Believing the SI would support he and his coworkers' struggle for justice, Louhérou took a prominent role in organizing it only to find out that the SI had branded the railroad workers “impatient and out of line.” The strike was eventually put down by a police intervention, and Louhérou was arrested and incarcerated along with several other ringleaders. During his time in prison, he took up an interest in Radical Syndicalist literature, which fellow railroad workers managed to smuggle in. He was released five years later along with the others in truce negotiations with local armed unionists after a series of riots and street battles. From there, with his prison sentence giving him a level of respect, he helped to officially unionize his old rail crew. Unlike other leaders, he was very wary of what might happen after the great General Strike, and he had taken steps to go underground with a cell of urban resistance fighters if things went sour. This confirmed his reputation as a careful but courageous pragmatist, which remains to this day. He was elected Chair of the SRP eight years ago, making him the most recently-elected Chair/Spokesperson of the three major Syndintern parties.

Total Population
Roughly 15 million under the direct jurisdiction of the Revolutionary Workers' Congress. Hundreds of millions of RSI-affiliated union members worldwide.

Nation's Location:

Nation's Geography:
The province of Brouges is formed, geographically, of low mountains in the North and East, dense forest in-between in the Northeast, and coastal plains throughout the rest. The province encompasses a wide natural bay, with the city of Brouges in the middle along the coast. The weather is cool but temperate: grey in the Fall, snowy in the Winter, and relatively sunny during the Spring and Summer. The flat land is good for farming, but the demand of the capital city easily dwarfs whatever the farms can produce.

Economy: Syndicalism

One of the hallmarks of the International's revolutionary program is the Work Exchange, an organization by which unions come together to cooperatively manage the distribution of goods and services. There are Work Exchanges for cities, provinces, and regions, as well a Central Work Exchange for the RSI as a whole.

At the level of the workplace, RSI union frameworks vary. In liberated territory, almost all workplaces are either worker-owned/managed cooperatives or integrated into larger democratic bodies. Sometimes the union itself acts as the governing body of all its constituent workplaces, owning many workplaces with managers appointed by the central democratic representatives or elected themselves.

The RSI's rural territory, the province of Brouges, is not especially remarkable. There are some forests for lumber and impressive coal mines in low hills, but the agricultural land does not produce enough food even to feed the city of Brouges. The small towns, though connected with modern rails, are mostly devoted to cottage industry despite growing populations.

The metropolis, on the other hand, is a bewildering economic giant, quite possibly the largest and most diverse economy contained within a single city. It boasts a very powerful military sector, meant to support the Revolutionary Guard and distribute weapons to allies. Besides this, the mix of industries is eclectic, but not wild, being mostly devoted to the economic development of liberated territory. Machine parts, wheels, tractors, trucks, trains, boats, airplanes, combines, cement, bricks, synthetic oil, fertilizers, and chemical powders are among the lively industries of the great city. Brouges is also known for preserving a thriving artisanal tradition, particularly in bakeries, candy, cheesemaking, butcher-shops, cobblers, and tailoring.

Brouges is also known for the People's Proletarian University, a truly gargantuan educational institution that mixes the usual university faculties (history, linguistics, physics, chemistry, etc) with medical, law, and all manner of craft trade schools. There, scholars, researchers, professionals, and master craftspeople from every corner of liberated territory (as well some from non-liberated territory) mingle in the global center of Syndicalist Thought and Practice!

Technology Overview
Syndintern abhors reactionary ideologies that idolize the past. Tradition is fine and good, but never at the expense of the security and prosperity of the member-unions. The enormous research facilities in the People's Proletarian University attract the brightest scientific minds from every corner of the International, particularly the Federation and certain professors' unions in the Dereham Republic. These researchers devote their time and extensive resources to technology useful in improving or defending the life conditions of all fellow syndicalists. This includes pollution reduction, more efficient public transit, fertilizers, and selective crop breeding. With most of the world still very hostile to Syndicalism, military technology remains a particularly high priority.

Military: The Revolutionary Guard

One million courageous souls serve the International through the Revolutionary Guard, the unrivaled professional intervention troops of the Syndicalist world. The Guard is designed as an elite force that can be deployed quickly and concentrate a great amount of shock power in a particular area as needed. In particular, it serves as a special military-on-call to bolster the Syndicalist cause wherever fellow revolutionaries could use extra firepower. The Revolutionary Guard is remarkable for its disproportionately high mechanization, making it lightning-quick in comparison to most of its enemies.

600,000 Army
– 200,000 frontline soldiers
– 25,000 home defense (essentially skeleton crews for Brouges' extensive static defenses, particularly on the shores)
– 75,000 army aviation pilots and gunners
– 300,000 logistics

400,000 Navy
– 100,000 crew sailors
– 50,000 navy aviation pilots
– 50,000 marines
– 200,000 logistics

Ground Vehicles of the Revolutionary Guard [+]

Aircraft of the Revolutionary Guard [+]

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