Syndicalism is a social and political program advocating an economic system based on equal ownership of production and democratic rule by federated trade unions. Peculiar to the industrial proletariat, the syndicalist agenda inspired by Proudhon, Bakunin and Sorel acquired political weight with the creation in 1895 of the French CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), most influential in the years leading up to the First World War. Unlike state Socialism, liable to degenerate into a disguised economic aristocracy of its bureaucratic elite, Syndicalism emphasizes the horizontal ties at work in co-operative confederations and mutual aid.