Native name | Congrès de Genève |
---|---|
Date | 3–8 September 1866 |
Location | Geneva |
Also known as | 1st General Congress |
Type | Congress |
Organised by | International Workingmen's Association |
Outcome | Adoption of the eight-hour day as a goal for the IWA |
The Geneva Congress of 1866 is the common name assigned to the 1st General Congress of the International Workingmen's Association, held in Geneva, Switzerland from 3 to 8 September 1866. The gathering was attended by 46 regular and 14 fraternal delegates from a total of five countries. The Geneva Congress is best remembered for its watershed decision to make universal establishment of the 8-hour working day a main goal of the International Socialist movement.
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), commonly known as the First International, was an international association of trade unionist and socialist political activists which attempted to coordinate labor activities across national boundaries. The organization is remembered for the active participation of many pioneer leaders of the modern socialist and anarchist movements, including Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin. Membership in the IWA was numerically small, its funding inadequate, and its institutional life short – lasting a mere 8 years from its establishment in 1864 until its termination at the Hague Congress of 1872. [1]
Establishment of the IWA was related to ongoing efforts to coordinate the activities of the trade union movements in Great Britain and France, a project begun in connection with the 1862 London World's Fair. [2] Economic crisis had led the imperial French government to concede the right to French workers to elect a delegation of 750 to the London exhibition. [2] While in London certain members of this delegation headed by Henri Tolain (1828–1897) established contact with British trade union leaders and opened the door for a formal meeting in London the following summer in support of the Polish uprising of 1863. [3]
The 1st General Congress of the International Workingmen's Association was convened in Geneva, Switzerland on 3 September 1866. [4] The gathering remained in session for six days, adjourning sine die on 8 September. [4]
The convention was attended by 46 regular delegates, including 6 members of the General Council and representing 22 sections of the IWA. [4] Of these, 20 represented 13 sections in Switzerland, 17 represented 4 sections in France, and 3 represented 4 sections in Germany. [4] In addition, 14 fraternal delegates were in attendance, 11 of whom represented affiliated organizations, such as Swiss trade unions and educational societies. [4]
The International Workingmen's Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its Congress in Geneva, declaring "The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive", and "The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day." Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers' health, writing in Das Kapital (1867): "By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself." [5]
The General German Workers' Association was a German political party founded on 23 May 1863 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony by Ferdinand Lassalle. It was the first organized mass working-class party in history.
The Anti-Authoritarian International was an international workers' organization formed in 1872 after the split in the First International between the anarchists and the Marxists. This followed the 'expulsions' of Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume from the First International at the Hague Congress. It attracted some affiliates of the First International, repudiated the Hague resolutions, and adopted a Bakuninist programme, and lasted until 1877.
The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy was an organisation founded by Mikhail Bakunin along with 79 other members on October 28, 1868, as an organisation within the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). The establishment of the Alliance as a section of the IWA was not accepted by the general council of the IWA because, according to the IWA statutes, international organisations were not allowed to join, since the IWA already fulfilled the role of an international organisation. The Alliance dissolved shortly afterwards and the former members instead joined their respective national sections of the IWA.
The Ligue internationale de la paix was created after a public opinion campaign against a war between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia over Luxembourg. The Luxembourg crisis was peacefully resolved in 1867 by the Treaty of London but in 1870 the Franco-Prussian War could not be prevented so the league dissolved and refounded as the 'Société française pour l'arbitrage entre nations' in the same year.
The Fraternal Democrats was a left-wing political international that promoted working-class internationalism. Based in London, the organisation counted members from half a dozen European countries, many of whom had fled from their home countries. The Fraternal Democrats were largely democratic, republican and socialist in orientation, although they also counted Chartists, communists and nationalists among their ranks. With its membership largely based in Britain, the organisation was never gained a truly international character, as it was unable to establish national sections within other countries. The Revolutions of 1848 resulted in much of its membership dissipating, in order to return to their native countries and participate in the revolutionary events. By the mid-1850s, the FD was succeeded by the International Association, which lay the foundations for the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA).
Adhémar Schwitzguébel (1844–1895) was a Swiss anarchist and trade unionist. Associated with the libertarian socialist faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), he co-founded its Jura Federation and participated in the splinter organisation that became the Anti-Authoritarian International. Schwitzguébel became active in the establishment of workers' organisations in Switzerland, establishing the first trade union of watchmakers in the country before his death from stomach cancer.
Henri Louis Tolain, was a leading member of the French trade union and socialist movement and a founding member of the First International and follower of Proudhon.
Internationalism is a political principle that advocates greater political or economic cooperation among states and nations. It is associated with other political movements and ideologies, but can also reflect a doctrine, belief system, or movement in itself.
The Labour and Socialist International (LSI) was an international organization of socialist and labourist parties, active between 1923 and 1940. The group was established through a merger of the rival Vienna International and the Berne International, and was the forerunner of the present-day Socialist International.
The International Working People's Association (IWPA), sometimes known as the "Black International," and originally named the "International Revolutionary Socialists", was an international anarchist political organization established in 1881 at a convention held in London, England.
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA) in the United States of America took the form of a loose network of about 35 frequently discordant local "sections," each professing allegiance to the London-based IWA, commonly known as the "First International." These sections were divided geographically and by the language spoken by their members, frequently new immigrants to America, including those who spoke German, French, Czech, as well as Irish and "American" English-language groups.
The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of socialist and labour parties and trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from most of Europe's major working-class organizations, though was dominated by the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The organization continued the work of the First International, which had been dissolved in 1876, and was ideologically dominated by Marxism, although other viewpoints were represented, most notably anarchism until anarchists were expelled in 1893. Its key thinkers included Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, and Georgi Plekhanov, with the ideas of Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg also being influential.
The International Workingmen's Association, often called the First International, was a political international which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, social democratic, communist, and anarchist groups and trade unions that were based on the working class and class struggle. It was founded in 1864 in a workmen's meeting held in St. Martin's Hall, London. Its first congress was held in 1866 in Geneva.
The Lausanne Congress of 1867 is the common name assigned to the 2nd General Congress of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), generally known as the First International. The meeting was held in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland from September 2 to 8, 1867. It was attended by 71 delegates, representing the socialist and labor movements of Switzerland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium.
The Cercle des prolétaires positivistes was an organisation of working class positivists who advocated revolution were affiliated to the First International, i.e. the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). The Parisian Circle sent Gabriel Mollin as their delegate to the Basle Congress of the IWA. Subsequently, referred to as the 'Society of Positivist Proletarians', they applied for admission to the IWA. The General Council replied they must alter the constitution as regards their understanding of capital and join as proletarians rather than as positivists.
The Basel Congress of 1869 is the common name assigned to the 4th General Congress of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), commonly known as the First International. The meeting was held in the city of Basel, Switzerland from September 6 to 12, 1869 and was attended by 75 delegates, representing the socialist and labor movements of United States, England France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.
Hermann Jung was a Swiss watchmaker who was active as a socialist in the International Workingmen's Association IWA. Jung participated in the revolution of 1848/49 in Germany and then emigrated to London. Here he became involved with the IWA. He was corresponding secretary for Switzerland in 1864–1872. He presided over the congresses of the IWA held in Geneva, Brussels, Basle and London. He was a member of the British Federal Council. Originally he followed of Marx, but after 1872 he joined the British Federal Council and the leaders of the British trade unions in opposing centralisation. He was not involved in the labour movement after 1877.
The Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association, known by its Spanish abbreviation FRE-AIT, was the Spanish chapter of the socialist working class organization commonly known today as the First International. The FRE-AIT was active between 1870 and 1881 and was influential not only in the labour movement of Spain, but also in the emerging global anarchist school of thought.
Anarchism in Switzerland appeared, as a political current, within the Jura Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), under the influence of Mikhail Bakunin and Swiss libertarian activists such as James Guillaume and Adhémar Schwitzguébel. Swiss anarchism subsequently evolved alongside the nascent social democratic movement and participated in the local opposition to fascism during the interwar period. The contemporary Swiss anarchist movement then grew into a number of militant groups, libertarian socialist organizations and squats.
Anarchism in Austria first developed from the anarchist segments of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), eventually growing into a nationwide anarcho-syndicalist movement that reached its height during the 1920s. Following the institution of fascism in Austria and the subsequent war, the anarchist movement was slow to recover, eventually reconstituting anarcho-syndicalism by the 1990s.