Revolutionary Syndicalists Encouraged the Full Development and Maturation of Capitalism to achieve Collectivism; Marx and Engels Endorsed British and French Imperialism and the American Conquest of Texas

Increasingly, revolutionary syndicalists held that, as Marxists, they must encourage the full development and maturation of Italian capitalism, since without a fully developed capitalism there could be no successful revolutionary collectivism. Moreover, in Italy the revolutionary movement could never achieve success on the basis of the working class alone. To triumph it must become a cross-class movement, drawing the support of farmers, farmworkers, and as much as possible of the productive middle classes as well. Nor was it a mistake to support “proletarian nationalism” in national war and colonial expansion, for Marx and Engels had themselves consistently endorsed British and French imperialism, together with the American conquest of Texas, as bringing progress to benighted regions. By 1910, therefore, a process was under way by which many revolutionary syndicalists would become nationalist syndicalists.

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 67.