The colors black and red have been used by anarchists since at least the late 1800s, though generally used by anarcho-communists. The flag was used as the symbol of the anarcho-syndicalists by the CNT during the Spanish Civil War. The black represents anarchism and the red represents leftist and socialist ideals. George Woodcock writes that the bisected black-and-red flag symbolized a uniting of "the spirit of later anarchism with the mass appeal of the First International"
Syndicalism is a current in the labor movement to establish local, worker-based organizations and advance the demands and rights of workers through strikes. Major syndicalist organizations include the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the General Confederation of Labor in France, the National Confederation of Labour in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union, the Free Workers' Union of Germany, and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation. A number of syndicalist organizations were and still are to this day linked in the International Workers' Association.
Syndicalists advocate direct action, including working to rule, passive resistance, sabotage, and strikes, particularly
… Read more the general strike, as tactics in the class struggle, as opposed to indirect action such as electoral politics. The final step towards revolution, according to syndicalists, would be a general strike. Labor unions were seen as being the embryo of a new society in addition to being the means of struggle within the old. Syndicalists generally agreed that in a free society production would be managed by workers. The state apparatus would be replaced by the rule of workers' organizations. In such a society individuals would be liberated, both in the economic sphere but also in their private and social lives.