The Second International

The Second International was founded in Paris in 1889 and it ended the national isolation of socialist organisations after the collapse of the First International. By this time, powerful socialist parties had been created in many European countries, often on the basis of the programmatic documents of the IWMA.

The struggle against anarchism waged in the First International was to continue in the first four congresses of the Second. The struggle centred around the question of "political action" - should socialists stand for parliament and, once elected there, should they propose measures achievable under capitalism, i.e. reforms? The anarchists argued that should they limit themselves to "direct action", by which some meant strikes and insurrectionary outbursts while others also included terrorist attacks on ruling class individuals - called by Kropotkin the "propaganda of the deed".

This time, though, the Marxists in the Second International could point to the fact that by taking up and fighting for the immediate political and economic needs of the working class, by organising and building trade unions, fighting for universal suffrage for both men and women, hundreds of thousands of working class militants had been won to the International and the programme of Marxism.

The Second International developed the tactic of the general strike, which came out of the struggle for universal suffrage in Belgium in 1896 and 1902 and was later used to achieve revolutionary aims in the Russian Revolution of 1905. It supported the right of self-determination for oppressed nations; it said its organisations should provide "neither a penny nor a man" for the capitalist war machine. It took up the idea of a common day of global workers' action - May Day - for the eight hour day and democratic freedoms.

It upheld the principle of the independence of the working class from other classes - including the independence of the workers' party. Therefore it insisted that the parties of the International should not participate in capitalist governments and should use their position in parliament to fight for social and democratic rights and to argue for socialism...

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