The First International

The First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle. It was founded in 1864 in a workmen's meeting held in St Martin's Hall, London. Its first congress was held in 1866 in Geneva.

In Europe, a period of harsh reaction followed the widespread Revolutions of 1848. The next major phase of revolutionary activity began almost twenty years later with the founding of the IWA in 1864. At its peak, the IWA reported having 8 million members, while police reported 5 million.

Following the January Uprising in Poland in 1863, French and British workers started to discuss developing a closer working relationship. Henri Tolain, Perrachon, and Limousin visited London in July 1863, attending a meeting held in St. James's Hall in honour of the Polish uprising. Here there was discussion of the need for an international organization, which would, amongst other things, prevent the import of foreign workers to break strikes. 

This "internationalizing" of industrial workers across Europe and arguing for a degree of common political purpose across national boundaries is reflected in a number of articles by Frederick Engels between the end of January and April 6, 1866 and first published in The Commonwealth, Nos. 159, 160 and 165, March 24, 31 and May 5, 1866. This is the beginning of the first of these articles:

What have the working classes to do with Poland?

Sir – Wherever the working classes have taken a part of their own in political movements, there, from the very beginning, their foreign policy was expressed in the few words – Restoration of Poland. This was the case with the Chartist movement so long as it existed, this was the case with the French working men long before 1848, as well as during that memorable year, when on the 15th of May they marched on to the National Assembly to the cry of “dive la Pologne!” – Poland for ever! This was the case in Germany, when, in 1848 and ’49, the organs of the working class demanded war with Russia for the restoration of Poland. It is the case even now; – with one exception – of which more anon – the working men of Europe unanimously proclaim the restoration of Poland as a part and parcel of their political programme, as the most comprehensive expression of their foreign policy. The middle-class, too, have had, and have still, “sympathies” with the Poles, which sympathies have not prevented them from leaving the Poles in the lurch in 1831, in 1846, in 1863, nay, have not even prevented them from leaving the worst enemies of Poland, such as Lord Palmerston, to manage matters so as to actually assist Russia while they talked in favour of Poland. But with the working classes it is different. They mean intervention, not non-intervention, they mean war with Russia while Russia meddles with Poland, and they have proved it every time the Poles rose against their oppressors. And recently, the International Working Men’s Association has given a fuller expression to this universal instinctive feeling of the body it claims to represent, by inscribing on its banner, "Resistance to Russian encroachments upon Europe – Restoration of Poland.”

Engels wrote this article at Marx’s request after controversy developed at the 1865 London conference of the International concerning including a demand for Poland’s independence in the upcoming Geneva Congress. 

In order to substantiate the position of the Central Committee on the “nationalities question,” it was necessary to deal with; 

• the Proudhonists who contended politics and national liberation movements have nothing to do with the working class, indeed, detracted from real working class issues, and;
• reveal the demagogic essence of the so-called “principle of nationalities” that helped the Bonapartists make use of national movements for their own political ends.

Marx joins the International
In September, 1864, some French delegates again visited London with the concrete aim of setting up a special committee for the exchange of information upon matters of interest to the workers of all lands.
 
On September 28, a great international meeting for the reception of the French delegates took place in St. Martin’s Hall in London. 

The meeting was attended by a wide array of European radicals, including English Owenites, French followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Louis Auguste Blanqui, Irish and Polish nationalists, Italian republicans, and German socialists. 

Included among the last-mentioned of this eclectic band was a somewhat obscure 46-year-old émigré journalist, Karl Marx, who would soon come to play a decisive role in the organisation.

Marx ended his Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association “The First International” with these words:

If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure? It was not the wisdom of the ruling classes, but the heroic resistance to their criminal folly by the working classes of England, that saved the west of Europe from plunging headlong into an infamous crusade for the perpetuation and propagation of slavery on the other side of the Atlantic. The shameless approval, mock sympathy, or idiotic indifference with which the upper classes of Europe have witnessed the mountain fortress of the Caucasus falling a prey to, and heroic Poland being assassinated by, Russia: the immense and unresisted encroachments of that barbarous power, whose head is in St. Petersburg, and whose hands are in every cabinet of Europe, have taught the working classes the duty to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.

The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Written: October 21-27, 1864;
First Published: Printed as a pamphlet in Inaugural Address and Provisional Rules of the International Working Men’s Association, along with the “General Rules”. London. Source: Original pamphlet

In 1872 the organization split in two over conflicts between communist and anarchist factions. It dissolved in 1876. The Second International was founded in 1889 formed in Paris on July 14, Bastille Day. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated. It continued the work of the dissolved First International, though excluding the still-powerful anarcho-syndicalist movement and unions, and existed until 1916.