BUILDING THE INTERNATIONAL – Part 2: The Socialist International – September 2022 – YouTube
This week’s meeting was introduced by Ed Bober.
As part of our occasional series on the history of the workers’ internationals, this week we focused on the Socialist International (also known as the Second International). On the day of the first worldwide general strike on May Day 1890, Engels celebrated what he considered the triumphant consummation of the historic life work of Marx and Engels. He wrote with pride: “Today, as I write these lines, the European and American proletariat is… mobilised as one army, under one flag, for one immediate aim… If only Marx were still by my side to see this with his own eyes!” As late as November 1912, as the storm clouds of the coming world war were gathering, at an Extraordinary International Socialist Congress at Basel, the Socialist International unanimously warned the ruling classes of Europe: “Let the governments remember that… they cannot unleash a war without danger to themselves… The proletarians consider it a crime to fire at each other for the profits of the capitalists, the ambitions of dynasties, or the greater glory of secret diplomatic treaties.” Less than two years later, its ringing promises of a Europe-wide general strike against the impending imperialist war were betrayed. The social-democrats of all the belligerent countries swallowed their speechifying and tamely swung into support behind their kings, generals and ministers. The International was dead – and millions of workers died in the ensuing bloodbath. Today too we are living through a period of gathering crisis: recession, inflation, ecological catastrophe and a growing threat of war. If ever a single worldwide party were needed to mobilise working people throughout the world, it is now. There has never been a more universal surge of protest and desperation… and yet these struggles are isolated and dislocated. How are they to be streamlined, harnessed into a united force to change society? What lessons can we learn from the rich and terrible history of past struggles? Our meetings are not intended to be dry academic seminars but dynamic collective inquiries into the lessons of our common political heritage. We urge you to participate actively in helping us all to relate the past to the vital tasks ahead of us.