The Congress of Toulouse, therefore, decided to make new changes. Accepting the suggestion of the Federation of Bourses whose adherence was desired, the Confederation was to consist now of (1) the Federation of Bourses du Travail, (2) of National federations of trade and of industry, and (3) of local syndicats or of local federations of trades which were not yet organized nationally or whose national federations refused to join the Confederation. The Confederation was to be represented by the Federal Committee of the Federation of Bourses and by the National Council of the Federations of trade.
The Congress of Toulouse again declared that "the general strike was synonymous with Revolution," and decided that sub-committees for the propaganda of the general strike should be established in the _Bourses du Travail_ to keep in touch with the General Committee in Paris. It discussed several other questions: trade-journal, suppression of prison-work, eight-hour day, and among these, for the first time, the questions of the boycott and of _sabotage_.
The report on boycott and _sabotage_[110] was prepared by two anarchists, Pouget and Delesalle. The report explained the origin of the boycott and of _sabotage_, and gave instances of their application in different countries. It referred in particular to the _Go Canny_ practice of the English workingmen whose principle the report merely wanted to generalize and to formulate.
[110] _Sabotage_ means the obstruction in all possible ways of the regular process of production; _cf._ ch. v.
Up to the present time [read the report] the workingmen have declared themselves revolutionary; but most of the time they have remained on theoretical ground: they have labored to extend the ideas of emancipation, they have tried to sketch a plan of a future society from which human exploitation should be eliminated.
But why, beside this educational work, the necessity of which is incontestable, has nothing been tried in order to resist the encroachments of capitalists and to render the exigencies of employers less painful to the workingmen?
To this end the report recommended the use of the boycott and of _sabotage_, which should take place by the side of the strike as the workingmen's means of defense and offense. The report shows how these methods could be used in particular cases. _Sabotage_ particularly, sometimes applied to the quantity, sometimes to the quality, should bring home to the employer that the workingmen are determined to render "poor work for poor pay".