Sabotage

Pouget, Emile, 1860-1931Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.7

Word count: 122K words
Chapters: 13

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Le Sabotage by Emile PougetAuthor: Pouget, Emile, 1860-1931,Language: French, Class: HD: Social sciences: Economic history and conditions, Production, Release Date: Aug 25, 2018

Editor's review

Le Sabotage is a pamphlet by the French syndicalist propagandist Émile Pouget, arguing around the tactic of sabotage. Its value lies not in offering a systematic theory but in presenting a controversial line of action within the early twentieth-century French workers' movement: how laborers could pressure employers without direct confrontation, by slowing production or performing their duties half-heartedly. The text is short, strongly polemical, plainly written, and bears the unmistakable propagandistic style of its era. For readers studying the history of syndicalist thought, labor movements, or modern French political currents, this pamphlet serves as a primary source for understanding the rhetoric and logic of radical union discourse at the time. General readers may also use it to observe how a "technique of resistance" was argued for and legitimized in a specific historical context. It should be read with critical distance, as a historical document rather than a guide to action. The French original demands some language proficiency.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University faculty and students studying French syndicalism and labor movement history
Readers interested in European political currents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Sociology or political science researchers seeking primary historical sources
Readers with French reading ability who enjoy short polemical texts

Not a good fit for

Beginner readers seeking a systematic theory of labor economics
General readers unfamiliar with French and without a translation at hand
Those expecting an objective, neutral academic survey rather than a propagandistic text
Readers looking for practical advice on the modern workplace

Reading tips

First learn the background of syndicalism and the labor movement of the French Third Republic; the main text will then be much easier to follow.
Treat the text as a historical document and annotate its argumentative strategies and rhetoric as you read, rather than judging whether its claims are right or wrong.
Read it alongside union documents from the same period to observe how the concept of sabotage differs from author to author.
It is short; read it in one sitting, then return to key passages for notes to avoid a fragmented understanding.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in French or English? Is it hard to read?

According to the sources, the book is in French and is a public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg. Readers with some French can read it directly; those unfamiliar with French will need a translation or reference materials, or they will face clear difficulties.

What is Le Sabotage about?

Judging from the title and the author's background, the book discusses sabotage as a workers' tactic and belongs to social-issue texts under economic history and conditions of production. It has a distinct syndicalist propaganda flavor and is best read as material for intellectual history rather than as a neutral theoretical work.

Why is a book of only a few dozen pages worth studying?

Its brevity makes it ideal as a primary source: it concentrates the argumentative methods and rhetorical style of radical union discourse from a particular period. Researchers can observe how a concept was defined, legitimized, and disseminated—details often compressed or omitted in comprehensive works.

What background knowledge is needed before reading?

It helps to first understand the basic tenets of French syndicalism, labor relations from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, and the contest among unions, employers, and the state at the time. With this background, many unstated premises and targets of argument in the text become easier to identify.

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About the author

Pouget, Emile, 1860-1931 Author

Émile Pouget (Pouget, Emile, 1860–1931) was a French trade union activist whose life and ideas are documented only to a limited extent in publicly available Chinese-language sources; existing accounts center mainly on his representative work Le Sabotage (Sabotage). The book focuses on sabotage as a means of struggle, in which workers pressure employers by slowing down or working less actively in order to win better working conditions and treatment. Pouget systematically explains the meaning, forms and feasibility of this strategy and links it to the practice of the trade union movement, arguing that it is not blind destruction but a collective response by workers in particular circumstances. The work is somewhat representative within the literature of the labor movement, is often mentioned in related discussions, and offers a useful reference for understanding the union strategies and labor–management relations of the period.