Second International
The Socialist International, commonly known as the Second International, was a political international of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on 14 July 1889. At a time of growing industrial working-class movements and the expansion of suffrage, it brought together autonomous national parties into a loose international federation. It continued the work of the First International, from which it inherited both the legacy of Karl Marx and the conflict with anarchists. The organization was dominated by the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany, whose organizational and theoretical leadership heavily influenced the other member parties.
The International established the annual celebration of International Workers' Day on 1 May and popularised the demand for an eight-hour day. Its early congresses were preoccupied with expelling anarchists and defining its mission as one based on parliamentary political action. After 1900, the International was increasingly confronted with the internal divisions of the socialist movement, particularly the rise of revisionism in Germany and the debate over socialist participation in "bourgeois" governments, sparked by the Millerand affair in France. The 1904 Amsterdam Congress, which saw a major debate between French socialist Jean Jaurès and German leader August Bebel, condemned revisionism and ministerialism, marking the highest point in the influence of the International.
From 1905, the prevention of war became the International's central task, and it came to be seen as the world's most important anti-militarist political force. At the congresses of Stuttgart, Copenhagen, and Basle, it passed increasingly urgent resolutions calling for international working-class action, including strikes, to stop the outbreak of war. However, the International was powerless to stop the crisis of July 1914. Following the assassination of its most charismatic anti-war leader, Jaurès, its major member parties—including those in Germany, France, Austria, and Great Britain—rallied to support their respective nations' efforts in World War I, precipitating the International's collapse.
The schism between its pro-war majority and its anti-war minority, which organised the Zimmerwald Conference, prefigured the post-war split between social democracy and communism. Post-war attempts to revive the organisation at the Berne International conference of 1919 were unsuccessful, as many parties refused to rejoin what they saw as a discredited body. The Second International was succeeded by the Labour and Socialist International, formed in 1923 by a merger of the Berne International and the International Working Union of Socialist Parties, and the Communist International.
Background
By the 1880s, the political and economic climate of Europe was shifting away from the mid-century dominance of liberal political economy. The Long Depression of the 1870s spurred a return to protectionism, exemplified by Germany's tariffs of 1879. Rapid industrialisation, especially in Germany, created a new urban proletariat and brought the "social question" to the forefront of public discussion. The expansion of suffrage in countries like Germany and France, and its extension in Britain in 1884, made it possible for mass political parties representing the working class to emerge. As trade unions grew in strength and purpose, organised socialism evolved from a set of doctrines held by theorists into the creed of these new mass parties.The legacy of the First International, which had been formally dissolved in 1876 after its internal collapse in 1872, had awakened Europe to the possibility of international working-class action and had endowed the idea of "The International" with a potent, if partly mythical, revolutionary tradition. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to revive the organization during the late 1870s and 1880s, notably at congresses in Ghent in 1877 and Chur, Switzerland, in October 1881. The Chur congress acknowledged that the time was not yet ripe for a formal relaunch, concluding that strong and properly organised national parties were essential preliminaries to the revival of the International upon a stable foundation.
German Social Democratic Party
The strongest and most influential socialist party in the world was the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Founded in 1875 at the Gotha Congress through a merger of Marxist "Eisenacher" and Lassallean groups, it established a mass political organisation with its own doctrine, leaders, and voter base. The party was led by Wilhelm Liebknecht, a friend of Karl Marx exiled after the 1848 revolutions, and August Bebel, a woodturner who became the party's chief organiser and orator.In 1878, Otto von Bismarck's government passed the Anti-Socialist Laws, which banned socialist meetings, associations, and newspapers. The persecution, which lasted until 1890, ultimately strengthened the party. Its leaders gained prestige as martyrs, and its organisation was forced to become more disciplined. During this period, 1,300 publications were suppressed and 1,500 party activists were sentenced to a total of 1,000 years' imprisonment. Despite this, the party's vote grew from 312,000 in 1881 to 763,000 in 1887. By 1890, when the laws expired, the SPD had thirty-five seats in the Reichstag and received nearly 1.5 million votes. The SPD's combination of Marxist revolutionary rhetoric and practical, law-abiding political activity created a model that was widely admired and emulated by emerging socialist parties across Europe, including in Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland.
Socialism in other countries
In France, the socialist movement was more divided, drawing on diverse and sometimes conflicting traditions: the utopianism of Charles Fourier, the insurrectionism of Auguste Blanqui, the anarchism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and the Marxism imported by Jules Guesde. The brutal suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871 had shattered the French working-class movement, which only began to revive in the late 1870s. In 1879, Guesde's Marxist group founded the French Workers' Party. They were soon challenged by the "Possibilists" led by Paul Brousse, who advocated for gradual municipal reforms and were deeply suspicious of Marx's attempts to dictate doctrine from London. Other factions, such as the Blanquists under Édouard Vaillant, and later the Allemanists and independent socialists around Benoît Malon, added to the disunity.In Great Britain, the predictions of Marxist theory were not being realised. The class struggle was muted, and the trade unions were focused on collective bargaining rather than independent political representation. Small Marxist groups existed, such as Henry Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation and William Morris's Socialist League, but the most significant contribution to socialist thought came from the non-Marxist Fabian Society, founded in 1884, which promoted a philosophy of gradual reform derived from the utilitarian tradition. The 1889 London dock strike marked a turning point, ushering in an era of "new unionism" among unskilled workers and increasing socialist influence in the trade unions. In 1888, the Scottish miner Keir Hardie founded the Scottish Labour Party, marking an early step toward independent labour representation in Parliament.
In Russia, autocratic rule made a mass movement impossible. The revolutionary movement was composed of small groups of exiles who debated doctrine and tactics, primarily in Switzerland. Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, revolutionary thinkers split between those who favoured terrorism and those who looked to the peasantry. A third way emerged in 1883 when Georgi Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich, and Pavel Axelrod founded the Marxist "Emancipation of Labour" group. They argued that Russia must follow the path of Western Europe, developing a capitalist economy and an industrial proletariat that would form the basis for a future socialist revolution.
Anarchist ideas, stemming from Mikhail Bakunin's influence in the First International, remained a powerful force, particularly in Spain and Italy, and competed everywhere with the more centralised and disciplined model of Marxist parties.
Formation (1889)
The revival of international socialism was closely tied to the growing movement for an eight-hour day. This demand originated in the United States and Australia in the 1850s and was taken up by French socialists in the 1880s, who saw international labour legislation as its primary goal. The centenary of the French Revolution in 1889, celebrated with a great exhibition in Paris, provided a natural occasion for a new international socialist congress. However, the divisions within the French socialist movement led to the convocation of two rival congresses. The Possibilists, led by Brousse, collaborating with the British Trades Union Congress, organised a congress that met in the Rue de Lancry. The Marxists, led by Guesde and supported by Liebknecht and the SPD, held their own congress in the Salle Petrelle.Liebknecht and others had hoped for a single, unified congress, but the intransigence of both French factions, and the scepticism of Friedrich Engels, made this impossible. The rivalry between the two meetings was intense and at times chaotic, with delegates drifting between them and anarchists disrupting the proceedings of both. Despite the confusion, the Marxist congress that opened on 14 July 1889 in the Salle Petrelle is considered the founding congress of the Second International. It was attended by nearly 400 delegates from twenty countries and included most of the prominent socialist leaders of Europe. It was a more distinguished gathering than its Possibilist rival, which was dominated by French delegates and included only a few prominent foreign figures like Hyndman.
The delegates saw themselves as heirs to the legacy of the First International; Liebknecht declared that the old International had not died but "passed into the mighty working-class movement", and that the new body was its "offspring". Liebknecht and Vaillant were elected joint presidents, their handshake symbolising the desired solidarity between German and French socialism. Other notable attendees included Bebel, Victor Adler from Austria, Hardie and Morris from Britain, Plekhanov from Russia, and Marx's daughter Eleanor Marx-Aveling and son-in-law Paul Lafargue. The congress was greeted as the "first parliament of the international working class," which had assembled to conclude a "sacred alliance of the international proletariat."
File:Walter-crane-1889-solidiarty-of-labour.jpg|thumb|upright|1889 design by Walter Crane celebrating International Workers' Day
The congress devoted much of its time to hearing reports on the state of the socialist movement in each country, breaking the isolation that had followed the collapse of the First International. On its final day, it passed a series of important resolutions that would set the agenda for the International for years to come. The most significant of these was the decision to organise "a great international demonstration" on a fixed date to demand an eight-hour working day. The date of 1 May was chosen, adopting a proposal made by the American Federation of Labor in 1888. This established the tradition of May Day as an international workers' holiday. The first such demonstration in 1890 was a major success, with impressive rallies and work stoppages in many European countries. The congress also passed resolutions condemning standing armies in favour of a "people in arms" or popular militia, and affirming that socialists should participate in elections where possible but "without compromising with any other parties". The debates over the implementation of these resolutions, particularly the nature of the May Day demonstration, revealed the deep tactical differences that existed between the member parties from the outset.