| Delegate Card to the Second International 1896/Union History |
By Jason Schulman
Few people in the United States know anything about the history of the socialist movement. The term “social democracy” is not part of the U.S. political vocabulary, and its achievements in Western Europe almost never discussed in U.S. high school social studies; the origins and development of socialist political thought (social democracy, Communism, Trotskyism, etc.) are rarely explored outside of little-known political journals. Furthermore, those who are new to the U.S. socialist movement often wonder where all the little groups that dot the landscape of the U.S. left came from. This piece summarizes the history of organized socialism around the world.
The First International was initiated as a mutual aid association of British and French trade unionists, and transformed politically by the activity within its leadership of Karl Marx. It was a very diverse body, and was eventually torn apart by an internal struggle between Marxists and secretive, anti-electoral anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin. It dissolved in 1876.
The Second International arose during the period of mass growth of the labor movement in the late 19th century. It was officially Marxist and dominated by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Under the intellectual guidance of its theoretician Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), the SPD’s strategy was to build the organized workers’ movement, and especially the workers’ political party as its central institution.
Source: The Internationals: A Brief History
