Internationalism is an important component of
socialist political theory, based on the principle that working-class people of all countries must unite across national boundaries and actively oppose nationalism and war in order to overthrow capitalism. In this sense, the socialist understanding of internationalism is closely related to the concept of international
solidarity. Socialist thinkers such as
Karl Marx,
Friedrich Engels, and
Vladimir Lenin argue that economic class, rather than (or interrelated with) nationality, race, or culture, is the main force which divides people in society, and that nationalist ideology is a
propaganda tool of a society's dominant economic class. From this perspective, it is in the ruling class' interest to promote nationalism in order to hide the inherent class conflicts at play within a given society (such as the
exploitation of workers by capitalists for profit). Therefore, socialists see nationalism as a form of ideological control arising from a society's given mode of economic production (see
dominant ideology). Since the 19th century, socialist political organizations and radical trade unions such as the
Industrial Workers of the World have promoted internationalist ideologies and sought to organize workers across national boundaries to achieve improvements in the conditions of labor and advance various forms of
industrial democracy. The
First,
Second,
Third, and
Fourth Internationals were socialist political groupings which sought to advance worker's revolution across the globe and achieve international socialism (see
world revolution). Socialist internationalism is
anti-imperialist, and therefore supports the
liberation of peoples from all forms of
colonialism and foreign domination, and the right of nations to
self-determination. Therefore, socialists have often aligned themselves politically with anti-colonial independence movements, and actively opposed the exploitation of one country by another. Since war is understood in socialist theory to be a general product of the laws of economic competition inherent to capitalism (i.e., competition between capitalists and their respective national governments for natural resources and economic dominance),
liberal ideologies which promote international capitalism and "free trade", even if they sometimes speak in positive terms of international cooperation, are, from the socialist standpoint, rooted in the very economic forces which drive world conflict. In socialist theory, world peace can only come once economic competition has been ended and class divisions within society have ceased to exist. This idea was expressed in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in
The Communist Manifesto: In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. The idea was reiterated later by Lenin and advanced as the official policy of the
Bolshevik party during World War I: Socialists have always condemned war between nations as barbarous and brutal. But our attitude towards war is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists (supporters and advocates of peace) and of the Anarchists. We differ from the former in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within the country; we understand that war cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created.
International Workingmen's Association The
International Workingmen's Association, or First International, was an organization founded in 1864, composed of various working class radicals and trade unionists who promoted an ideology of internationalist socialism and anti-imperialism. Figures such as Karl Marx and anarchist revolutionary
Mikhail Bakunin would play prominent roles in the First International. The
Inaugural Address of the First International, written by Marx in October 1864 and distributed as a pamphlet, contained calls for international cooperation between working people, and condemnations of the imperialist policies of national aggression undertaken by the governments of Europe: 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? By the mid-1870s, splits within the International over tactical and ideological questions would lead to the organization's demise and pave the way for the formation of the
Second International in 1889. One faction, with Marx as the figurehead, argued that workers and radicals must work within parliaments in order to win political supremacy and create a worker's government. The other major faction were the
anarchists, led by Bakunin, who saw all state institutions as inherently oppressive, and thus opposed any parliamentary activity and believed that workers action should be aimed at the total destruction of the state.
Socialist International The Socialist International, known as the Second International, was founded in 1889 after the disintegration of the International Workingmen's Association. Unlike the First International, it was a federation of socialist political parties from various countries, including both reformist and revolutionary groupings. The parties of the Second International were the first socialist parties to win mass support among the working class and have representatives elected to parliaments. These parties, such as the German Social-Democratic Labor Party, were the first socialist parties in history to emerge as serious political players on the parliamentary stage, often gaining millions of members. Ostensibly committed to peace and anti-imperialism, the International Socialist Congress held its final meeting in Basel, Switzerland in 1912, in anticipation of the outbreak of World War I. The manifesto adopted at the Congress outlined the Second International's opposition to the war and its commitment to a speedy and peaceful resolution: If a war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working classes and their parliamentary representatives in the countries involved supported by the coordinating activity of the International Socialist Bureau to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of war by the means they consider most effective, which naturally vary according to the sharpening of the class struggle and the sharpening of the general political situation. In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule. Despite this, when the war began in 1914, the majority of the Socialist parties of the International turned on each other and sided with their respective governments in the war effort, betraying their internationalist values and leading to the dissolution of the Second International. This betrayal led the few anti-war delegates left within the Second International to organize the
International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald, Switzerland in 1915. Known as the Zimmerwald Conference, its purpose was to formulate a platform of opposition to the war. The conference was unable to reach agreement on all points, but ultimately was able to publish the Zimmerwald Manifesto, which was drafted by Leon Trotsky. The most left-wing and stringently internationalist delegates at the conference were organized around Lenin and the Russian Social Democrats, and known as the
Zimmerwald Left. They bitterly condemned the war and what they described as the hypocritical "social-chauvinists" of the Second International, who so quickly abandoned their internationalist principles and refused to oppose the war. The Zimmerwald Left resolutions urged all socialists who were committed to the internationalist principles of socialism to struggle against the war and commit to international workers' revolution. The perceived betrayal of the social-democrats and the organization of the Zimmerwald Left would ultimately set the stage for the emergence of the world's first modern communist parties and the formation of the Third International in 1919.
Communist International ) in
Petrograd The Communist International, also known as the Comintern or the Third International, was formed in 1919 in the wake of the
Russian Revolution, the end of the first World War, and the dissolution of the Second International. It was an association of communist political parties from throughout the world dedicated to proletarian internationalism and the revolutionary overthrow of the world bourgeoisie. The
Manifesto of the Communist International, written by
Leon Trotsky, describes the political orientation of the Comintern as "against imperialist barbarism, against monarchy, against the privileged estates, against the bourgeois state and bourgeois property, against all kinds and forms of class or national oppression".
Fourth International The fourth and final socialist international was founded by Leon Trotsky and his followers in 1938 in opposition to the Third International and the direction taken by the USSR under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. The
Fourth International declared itself to be the true ideological successor of the original Comintern under Lenin, carrying on the banner of proletarian internationalism which had been abandoned by Stalin's Comintern. A variety of still active left-wing political organizations claim to be the contemporary successors of Trotsky's original Fourth International.
Internationalism in practice The
4th World Congress of the Communist International established the legal framework for internationalist collaboration and the foundation of agricultural and industrial communes within the USSR. Up until World War II, between seventy and eighty thousand internationalist-minded workers moved to the Soviet Union from abroad. The call for internationalist solidarity attracted settlers from countries such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Uruguay and the United States. One of first communes was formed by 123 workers of the Ford Motor Company's Highland Park factory. Led by the Detroit-based engineer Arthur Adams (1885–1969) the cooperative arrived in 1921 to set up the first automobile plant of the USSR (
Likhachev Plant) in the vicinity of Moscow. By 1932, the
Frunze-based cooperative comprised members from 14 different ethnicities who had developed an organic pathwork working language referred to as "spontánne esperanto". Being a product of the
New Economic Policy, after Stalin's
Great Break, most internationalist communes operating in the USSR were either shut down or collectivized.
Literature and criticism In his work
Banal Nationalism, critic
Michael Billig argued internationalism was borne out of the rise of nationalism, and rejects attempts to counterpose the two. He writes: "An outward-looking element of internationalism is part of nationalism and has accompanied the rise of nationalism historically. When US presidents, today, claim to speak simultaneously on behalf of their nation and a new world order, they are not placing, side by side in the same utterance, elements from two, clearly separate ideologies; nor are they creating a novel synthesis from the thesis of nationalism and the antithesis of internationalism. They are using the hegemonic possibilities of nationalism [...] these possibilities are endemic in nationalist habits of thinking." In
Jacques Derrida's 1993 work,
Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, he uses
Shakespeare's
Hamlet to frame a discussion of the history of the International, ultimately proposing his own vision for a "New International" that is less reliant on large-scale international organizations. As he puts it, the New International should be "without status ... without coordination, without party, without country, without national community, without co-citizenship, without common belonging to a class." Through Derrida's use of
Hamlet, he shows the influence that Shakespeare had on Marx and Engel's work on internationalism. In his essay, "Big Leagues: Specters of Milton and Republican International Justice between Shakespeare and Marx", Christopher N. Warren makes the case that English poet
John Milton also had a substantial influence on Marx and Engel's work.
Paradise Lost, in particular, shows "the possibility of political actions oriented toward international justice founded outside the aristocratic order." Marx and Engels, Warren claims, understood the empowering potential of Miltonic republican traditions for forging international coalitions—a lesson, perhaps, for "The New International." == Fascist internationalism ==