International Workingmen's Association
Encyclopedia : I : IN : INT : International Workingmen's Association
- For the anarcho-syndicalist group, see International Workers Association.
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In Europe, a period of harsh reaction followed the widespread revolutionary activity of 1848. The next major phase of revolutionary activity began almost twenty years later with the founding of the IWA in 1864.
An alliance of diverse groups founded in 1864
The International Workingmen's Association, at its founding, was an alliance of diverse groups, including French Mutualists, Blanquists, English Owenites, Italian republicans, followers of Mazzini, and other socialists of various persuasions. Over its short life it grew into a major movement, with local federations in many countries developing strong bases of working class activism. Karl Marx was a constant, and leading, figure from the start - he was elected to every succeeding General Council of the association.
Due to the wide variety of philosophies present in the First International, there was conflict from the start. The first objections to Marx's came from the Mutualists who opposed communism and statism. However, shortly after Mikhail Bakunin and his followers (called Collectivists while in the International) joined in 1868, the First International became polarised into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads. Perhaps the clearest differences between the groups emerged over their proposed strategies for achieving their visions of socialism. The anarchists grouped around Bakunin favoured (in Kropotkin's words) "direct economical struggle against capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary agitation." Marxist thinking, at that time, focused on parliamentary activity. For example, when the new German Empire of 1871 became the first country to introduce manhood suffrage, many German socialists became active in the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany.
The 1872 Hague Congress and split between Anarchists and Marxists
After the Paris Commune (1871), Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as authoritarian, and predicted that if a Marxist party came to power its leaders would end up as bad as the ruling class they had fought against (notably in his [Statism and Anarchy].) In 1872, the conflict in the First International climaxed with a final split between the two groups at the Hague Congress. This clash is often cited as the origin of the long-running conflict between anarchists and Marxists. From then on, the authoritarian and libertarian currents of socialism had distinct organisations, at various points including rival 'internationals'.
In 1872, the organization was relocated to New York City. The First International disbanded 4 years later, at the 1876 Philadelphia conference. Attempts to revive the organization over the next five years failed. However, the Second International was established in 1889 as its successor. Meanwhile, the anarchists continued to consider that they were unfairly ejected from the IWA, and finally decided to refound it themselves in a congress held at Berlin in 1922 as the International Workers Association.
See also
- Second International and Socialist International
- Third International (Comintern)
- Fourth International and Trotskyist internationals
- The Internationale
- International Workers Association
- List of left-wing internationals
- Victor Considérant (utopian socialist, member of the International)
External links
- [International Worker's Association] official site
- [History of the International Workingmen's Association], at Marxists.org
- [Libertarian Communist Library International Working Mens Association (IWMA) Archive]
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