Introduction

Socialism

That word—considered by some to have been relegated to dusty historical archives—has once again become a major point of contention in contemporary politics. So much so that US president Donald Trump regularly conjured up the socialist bogeyman as he sought to justify some of the more reactionary policies of his administration. By doing this, however, Trump inadvertently testified to the massive growth of interest in socialism today, especially among young people.

An Axios poll in early 2019 found that 61 percent of US citizens age eighteen to twenty-four viewed socialism in a favorable light. Such sentiment is remarkable given the decades of Cold War antisocialist rhetoric that has inundated US political culture. Another indication of the deepening interest in socialism is the explosive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose membership jumped from six thousand in 2016 to well over ten times that number by early 2020.

Behind this phenomenon of socialism’s growing appeal is the dawning recognition by millions of young people and others that capitalism offers them no future. Millions are saddled with student debt, limited job prospects, and knowing they face a standard of living worse than their parents. Young workers face deteriorating wages and working conditions, as well as the ever-present threat of unemployment. Worries about health care, education, and other declining social services confront them at every step. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how starkly the profit system stands in contradiction to human needs.

The upsurge around racist police killings that shook the United States and the world in 2020 illustrated how millions are repelled by the horrors they see around them: never-ending imperialist wars; racism and police brutality; escalating attacks on women’s rights; anti-immigrant scapegoating and violence; chauvinist hysteria; the growth of ultraright forces; the dehumanization and commodification of social relations. On top of all this, they see a looming catastrophe facing humanity due to the consequences of climate change and environmental destruction. All of these evils appear to them to have a common source: capitalism.

Despite this sentiment, however, relatively few of those now rallying to socialism know much about its history. Nor are most of them fully aware of the revolutionary thrust at the heart of socialism’s legacy.

For this reason, an appreciation of the Second International—often referred to as the “Socialist International”—during the years its resolutions were guided by revolutionary Marxism is particularly relevant.[1]

An International Movement

A central tenet of the socialist movement for over 170 years has been internationalism.

“Workers of the world, unite!” has been socialism’s slogan ever since Karl Marx and Frederick Engels issued this clarion call in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. Along these lines, the universal anthem of world socialism has been “The Internationale.”

Putting that perspective into practice, Marx and Engels in 1864 helped organize and lead the International Workingmen’s Association, better known as the First International. That association played a vital role in consolidating the emerging working-class movement around the world. It became known in particular for promoting the concept of international working-class solidarity, through the organization of support to strikes and other struggles by working people across borders. As Marx put it in 1872, “Let us bear in mind this fundamental principle of the International: solidarity! It is by establishing this life-giving principle on a reliable base among all the workers in all countries that we shall achieve the great aim which we pursue . . . the universal rule of the proletariat.”[2]

Due to the primitive conditions of the early working-class movement, the First International had a short life span, declining precipitously after 1872 and formally dissolving in 1876. During the thirteen years that followed, various attempts were made to revive it. All were unsuccessful, however, coming up against the weakness of the organized proletarian movement in most countries. But by 1889, mass working-class parties and a growing trade union movement had begun to emerge. In this context, the world organization that became known as the Second International was founded.

The new movement—known at the time as Social Democracy—was formed under the direct guidance of Frederick Engels, who, after Marx’s death in 1883, was the recognized leader of world socialism. Among the Second International’s leading figures over the next twenty-five years were prominent left-wing socialists and Marxists: Eleanor Marx, August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Paul Lafargue, Karl Kautsky, Jules Guesde, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Georgy Plekhanov, Christian Rakovsky, and V. I. Lenin.

The role of Engels in the early years of the Second International is often not fully appreciated. Marx’s lifelong collaborator played a central role in the Second International’s founding in 1889, advising the organizers in detail on virtually all questions related to the political preparation and organization of the founding congress, along with helping to publicize the event. Engels subsequently played an important advisory role in the Second International’s development up until his death in 1895.

A Heterogeneous Movement

From its beginning, the Second International was a loose association of widely divergent forces, with differing perspectives and expectations.

The movement included in its ranks both political parties and trade unions. A few of the political organizations were mass parties; others were small propaganda groups. Some of these forces had clearly defined Marxist programs; others still bore traits of pre-Marxist brands of socialism, with a multitude of conflicting perspectives, such as anarchism and syndicalism. The three largest contingents of the Second International were those in Germany, with a mass Social Democratic Party and large trade unions that looked to this party; Britain, with a number of relatively apolitical trade unions and a wide assortment of small political organizations; and France, with strong revolutionary traditions, but with the movement divided into opposing political currents.

The Second International’s affiliates in different areas faced a wide variety of social and economic situations. Some countries, like Germany and Britain, were industrial powers with a well-developed proletariat. Other countries had primarily agrarian economies, with a large peasantry and a small working class. Some countries where socialists lived had ruling classes that possessed colonial empires; other peoples lived under the boot of colonialism and imperialism. State repression against socialist parties ranged from intermittent harassment to the imposition of total bans. As a result of all these differences, prevailing political cultures within the movement varied considerably.

Accomplishments and Strengths

In the quarter century of its existence, the Second International had a number of important accomplishments to its credit.

Perhaps its greatest achievement was to unify the international working-class movement under the banner of Marxism. And it helped disseminate and popularize the movement’s strategic aim: the revolutionary overturn of the capitalist ruling class and its replacement by the rule of the proletariat, as a first step toward the establishment of socialism.

The founding congress in 1889 laid out the revolutionary goal of the new organization, affirming “that the emancipation of labor and humanity cannot occur without the international action of the proletariat— organized in class-based parties—which seizes political power through the expropriation of the capitalist class and the social appropriation of the means of production.”

The Second International of these years was, in its adopted resolutions, an irreconcilable revolutionary opponent of the capitalist system. While it championed the fight for reforms in the interests of working people—the eight-hour day, state-sponsored insurance and pensions, public education, votes for women, the right to asylum, and many other reform measures—it rejected the idea that capitalism as a system was reformable. It called for the working class to take political power and expropriate the capitalist owners of the major industries. It insisted that the working class itself was the agent of its own emancipation. And it defended the interests of all the oppressed and exploited around the world.

Two dates on the calendar today owe their existence to the Second International: May Day, established at the movement’s founding congress in 1889 as a demonstration of working-class power and solidarity around the world; and International Women’s Day, established in 1910 as a worldwide day of action for working women in the fight for full social and political rights.

The Second International showed the potential power of the organized working class. Camille Huysmans, the International Socialist Bureau’s secretary, estimated that in the years before 1914 the Second International counted ten to twelve million members affiliated to its national sections, with over fifty million sympathizers and voters.[3] Numerous socialist representatives and deputies sat in national parliaments and regional and local legislative bodies.

For many workers, these signs of strength and seemingly uninterrupted growth gave them confidence that a revolutionary transformation of society was possible in the not-too-distant future.

Weaknesses and Contradictions

But behind this real and potential power were significant weaknesses and contradictions.

For one thing, the Second International was simply a loose federation of national parties and trade unions. The International possessed moral authority and made decisions on broad policy and strategy, to be put into practice by its affiliates. There was a positive side to this type of structure, particularly in the Second International’s early years, as the movement consolidated itself politically.

But that structure came to be a serious weakness over time. No mechanism existed for implementation of the International’s decisions, even after the 1900 creation of the International Socialist Bureau as the movement’s executive body. Resolutions were often not put into practice. In the derisive words of the early Communist movement, the Second International functioned essentially as a “mailbox.”[4] Such an appreciation was undoubtedly exaggerated and unfair, given that parties of the Second International regularly carried out important internationally coordinated actions during this period. It should be recognized, however, that these actions were generally organized on a party-to-party basis, without any real central control or coordination, even compared to that of the General Council of the First International decades earlier.[5]

Another weakness involved its geographic focus. Even though the Second International’s reach extended to many countries, it was still predominantly a European and North American movement. While congress resolutions gave support to anticolonial struggles, most sections of the movement still had an underappreciation of those struggles. Moreover, the Second International never became a truly world movement. The only countries outside Europe, North America, and Australia that were ever represented at Second International congresses during the 1889–1912 period were Argentina, Japan, South Africa, and Turkish Armenia.

Similarly, the International’s resolutions often lacked an adequate appreciation of the strategic allies the working class would need in its struggle—from toilers in the colonial world to working farmers and peasants, small shopkeepers, victims of national oppression, and others.

Finally, even though it called for the revolutionary replacement of capitalism, the Second International as a whole lacked a clear perspective on the role of revolutionary action in such a transformation. The relationship between reform and revolution was a constant point of friction and debate. An openly opportunist and reformist wing within its parties steadily grew.

Above all, the Second International was characterized by a gap between word and deed, as the day-to-day practice of most parties became increasingly dominated by a reformist and nonrevolutionary perspective. This gap and the growing divergences grew into a chasm in 1914 with the onset of the First World War. In clear violation of all the Second International’s resolutions, the main parties of the Second International renounced their past pledges and lined up behind their governments’ war efforts. Millions of workers and others were sent to their deaths, with the support of these parties.

In the words of Rosa Luxemburg, the Second International’s leading representatives had thereby amended the Communist Manifesto’s call of “Workers of the world, unite,” changing it to “Proletarians of all countries, unite in peacetime and cut each other’s throats in wartime!”[6]

The betrayal of 1914 marked the political death of the Second International. Even though it was formally reconstituted in 1919, the new body lacked even the pretense of being a revolutionary movement. It consisted instead of open supporters of capitalist regimes and diehard opponents of the postwar revolutionary upsurge that developed in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

A Conflicted Legacy

Virtually all currents claiming to be socialist today formally acknowledge the Second International as part of their legacy. Yet, the Second International’s resolutions during its Marxist period remain virtually unknown. Most are exceedingly difficult to even find. Astoundingly, the resolutions from its first nine congresses have never before been assembled together and published in their entirety in English.

What can be the explanation for this fact?

One obvious answer is that the Social Democratic parties of the post-1919 Second International were not interested in doing so. And for good reason.

Following the First World War and continuing over the next century, Social Democratic parties headed the government in a number of countries: Australia, Belgium, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and others. They all defended capitalist rule both as parties in power and as loyal oppositions, and were willing participants or accomplices in numerous colonial and imperialist wars. It’s not hard to understand why such parties would not want to be reminded of their revolutionary past. They would prefer to keep that chapter hidden and deeply buried.

But what about revolutionary socialists? Shouldn’t they be interested in the resolutions of the Second International during its Marxist period?

The reality, however, is that most left-wing socialists and communists have had a conflicted view of the Second International’s legacy.

In the years after the formation of the Third International—the Communist International (Comintern)—in 1919, many left-wing socialists wavered on whether to seek to rebuild the Second International or to construct an entirely new world movement. To these wavering elements, supporters of the Comintern repeatedly stressed the Second International’s betrayal, and the need for a definitive break with it. Emphasis was placed on the need to turn one’s back entirely on what had become a bankrupt organization that stood in the way of struggles by working people. Ever since then, generations of socialist activists have felt there was little value in studying the work or legacy of the Second International.

While that sentiment may be understandable, the conclusion is unwarranted. Downplaying the legacy of the Second International’s Marxist period means cutting oneself off from an important part of the revolutionary movement’s history, as well as the lessons to be learned from it. Doing so also means ceding that legacy to currents that sullied socialism’s banner following 1914, and continue to do so. But the best of this legacy legitimately belongs to revolutionary-minded socialists and communists.

The revolutionary leaders who broke with the Second International after its betrayal of 1914, such as V. I. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, were not sparing in invective to label the betrayers. The vivid metaphor of the German Social Democratic Party as a “stinking corpse” is one of the more graphic descriptions.[7] What these revolutionaries criticized, above all, was the Second International’s gap between word and deed, its hypocrisy.

In making these criticisms, however, Lenin and Luxemburg never renounced the resolutions the Second International had adopted. Quite the contrary. During the years of the First World War, for example, they constantly referred to the best of these resolutions—particularly the resolutions on militarism and war—to illustrate the extent to which the Second International’s majority leaders were violating these resolutions in practice.

In addition to these programmatic points of continuity, the congresses of the Second International became places where the emerging revolutionary left wing began to collaborate and lay the foundations for their subsequent international efforts. At the 1907 congress, for example, Luxemburg and Lenin worked closely on the resolution on war and militarism. And at the 1910 congress, Lenin organized a small meeting of left-wing delegates to discuss areas of collaboration.

Debates in the Second International

Many of the resolutions adopted by the Second International, and printed in this book, were subjects of debate and controversy. Among these:

Debates with the anarchists. During the earlier years of the First International, there were heated exchanges with anarchists, a major current in the workers’ movement at the time. Marx and Engels devoted considerable attention to this debate, above all with the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin. A central tenet of anarchist ideology was to reject all forms of political action, including participation in elections and the fight for political reforms and social legislation.

There were relatively few anarchists who participated as delegates in Second International congresses. But they once again raised objections to political action, making their presence known through regular disruptions of the proceedings. To prevent such disruptions, in 1891 a resolution on conditions of admission to the congress was adopted that called for recognition of political action as a precondition for attending international congresses, thereby excluding anarchists. Similar resolutions were approved in 1893 and in 1896, at which time anarchists were definitively placed outside the International.

Debates over the general strike and May Day. The question of the general strike was a point of contention at numerous congresses. This issue was generally put forward by delegates influenced by syndicalism, an ideology that tended to see unions as the essential instrument for revolutionary change. Many syndicalists viewed the general strike as the primary and surefire working-class weapon—above all, to combat the threat of war.

This overestimation of the potential of a general strike, however, was met by an opposite tendency to dismiss even the possibility of such a strike. Much of this opposition came from the German trade unions and their defenders in that country’s Social Democratic Party. German unions were expanding rapidly at the time, along with a growing bureaucracy within them. Given the precarious legal situation then facing the working-class movement in Germany—even after the law banning socialist activity was lifted in 1890, restrictions on political and union activity remained—the German unions were afraid that such strikes could lead the government to outlaw them.

The overly cautious opposition to the general strike could also be seen on the question of May Day. In December 1888 the American Federation of Labor (AFL) voted to organize actions throughout the United States for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890, in commemoration of the movement that began in the United States in 1886—a movement that had become known worldwide because of the Haymarket events that year in Chicago.[8]

The founding congress of the Second International in 1889 endorsed the AFL’s initiative and voted to set May 1, 1890, as a day for demonstrations and strikes by working people around the world. From then on, May Day became a day to demonstrate the strength and solidarity of the international working-class movement.

Debates on May Day occurred at a number of congresses. The German and British trade unions and parties in particular were opposed to calling for strikes on May Day, preferring instead to schedule parades and rallies on the first Sunday in the month. Compromise resolutions were adopted at international congresses calling for strikes and demonstrations on May 1 where possible, but leaving the matter for ultimate decision by organizations in each country.

Debates over participation in capitalist governments and relations with bourgeois parties. At the congresses of Paris (1900) and Amsterdam (1904), debates centered on the question of socialist participation in capitalist governments and relations with bourgeois parties.

In 1899 French socialist Alexandre Millerand accepted a position as minister in the capitalist government of France. This move sparked a fierce controversy in the world socialist and working-class movement, given that socialists had always rejected accepting such posts. In the end, Second International resolutions condemned all participation by socialists in capitalist governments. Alongside that view, not giving support to bourgeois parties was seen by left-wing forces in the International as a principled question, in line with Karl Kautsky’s assessment of “the bankruptcy of all capitalist parties.”[9]

Debates over immigration. Heated debates occurred at the 1904 and 1907 congresses, as some socialists accepted anti-immigrant arguments that “backward,” nonwhite workers could not be organized and took jobs away from native-born workers; as such, they endorsed the concept of restricting immigration. These racist arguments were sharply answered by those who supported the traditional socialist view opposing all immigration restrictions, a view that saw immigrants as fellow workers to be welcomed, championed, and organized into the working-class struggle.

Debates over colonialism. At the congresses of 1904 and 1907, the question of the new phenomenon of modern colonialism and imperialism was a hotly contested issue. A significant minority at these congresses supported the perspective of “socialist colonialism”—criticizing colonial abuses but supporting the idea of colonialism’s “civilizing mission,” and asserting that colonial rule and exploitation should still exist under socialism. The pro-colonialist position was ultimately rejected, but only by an astonishingly close vote.

Debates over trade unions. At several congresses, debates occurred over whether trade unions should be neutral on the question of working-class political power. Many conservative-minded trade union officials supported the idea that unions should focus exclusively on narrow, everyday issues such as wages and working conditions and not take up broad social and political questions. Coming out of these debates, the Second International reaffirmed the traditional Marxist view opposing the “neutrality” principle and stressing the need for permanent and close contact between trade unions and socialist parties.

The appendix to this book includes a number of unapproved resolutions that can help the reader see more clearly the issues in contention.

Through the debates around these and other issues, three distinct currents in the Second International crystallized in the years leading up to 1914: a large reformist and opportunist wing, a small but growing revolutionary left wing, and an amorphous centrist grouping that sought to straddle the other two sides, using Marxist language but increasingly adapting to opportunist forces.

Unevenness

By studying the Second International’s adopted resolutions and motions in their entirety, their uneven nature is observable. Some resolutions are sharp and clear; others are ambiguous, vague, or contradictory. A tendency existed toward adopting compromise resolutions, in which conflicting views were sometimes papered over. Some of the adopted resolutions were drafted well prior to congresses, were circulated broadly, and received careful consideration. Other resolutions came about through delegates’ motions on the congress floor that were approved with little or no discussion.

Despite this unevenness, the resolutions as a whole—with a few significant exceptions—were guided by the spirit of revolutionary Marxism. Most presented a clear socialist perspective on the major questions facing the working class and the oppressed, many of which remain acute today.

Contemporary Relevance

What is the value of these resolutions for new generations coming to socialism today?

Most of the major issues facing socialists at the present time are not new. Some have come up in different ways and contexts, but many of the issues in the fight today nevertheless bear a remarkable similarity to what they were over a century ago:

Political power. Probably the single biggest thread running through the resolutions adopted at Second International congresses was that every single major issue facing working people was inextricably tied to the question of political power, and the need to replace domination by capitalists and landlords with the rule of working people. In this spirit, it was generally assumed by the Second International that workers needed their own independent party, and that no political support was to be extended to the capitalist class or its parties. While the working class fights aggressively for reform measures, Second International resolutions stressed, the capitalist system as a whole was unreformable. A revolutionary transformation of the entire social order was necessary.

War and militarism. Workers need to oppose all imperialist wars, Second International resolutions asserted. Not an ounce of support should be extended to these ventures, they insisted. The old slogan of the German socialist movement “Not one penny, not one person” to the capitalist war machine guided the work of most socialists then and remains the stance socialists can look to now. The fight against militarism and war, together with the entire war machine, is a key task, part of the overall working-class struggle.

Imperialism and colonialism. Colonial conquest and plunder of the Third World was seen as simply an extension of capitalist exploitation, according to the Second International’s adopted resolutions. Workers therefore need to actively support and champion the struggle for freedom by oppressed peoples fighting imperialist and colonialist domination, along with its racist justifications and rationalizations.

International solidarity. Numerous resolutions of the Second International centered on the international solidarity essential to the struggle of working people. Solidarity is a life-and-death question for the working class. Extending it is not an act of charity but rather an essential precondition for the success of workers’ struggles.

Immigration. The Second International’s resolution of 1907 pointed to the need to oppose all restrictions on the free immigration and emigration of workers, as well as to combat all forms of racist scapegoating. Immigrant workers should be viewed not as helpless victims but as welcome allies and reinforcements in the struggle against capitalism.

Democratic rights. Resolutions adopted at international congresses stressed the centrality of political and democratic rights. They viewed these rights as tools in the revolutionary struggle, and pointed to why the working class has the biggest stake in the fight to win them. Among the specific issues taken up in these resolutions are the fight against all antidemocratic restrictions, against political repression, for freedom of all political prisoners, for voting rights, for defense of the right to asylum, and for abolition of the death penalty.

Trade unions. The central importance of unions remains what it has been for over a century: as basic organizations to defend workers’ interests. As Second International resolutions recognized, economics and politics are closely connected, which is why unions cannot be “neutral” in the political struggle. Strikes, boycotts, and other weapons in unions’ arsenal need to be defended against all attempts to restrict the exercise of union power.

Labor legislation. The fight for laws limiting working hours, regulating working conditions, banning child labor, mandating equal pay for equal work, and guaranteeing workers the right to organize was central to socialists in the Second International. All of these issues remain of decisive importance for working people today.

Public education and cultural advancement. As socialists recognized over a century ago, public education as a right is a conquest of the working class in the fight to advance society. All attacks on this right need to be strongly combated. Access to education—including higher education— must be available to all, free of charge.

Women’s emancipation. Under the impetus of female socialists like Clara Zetkin, multiple resolutions of the Second International addressed the oppression of women and how it is built into the very structure of capitalism. The fight against this oppression will play a central part in the overall revolutionary struggle, they pointed out. The struggle around this question today involves many decisive issues, including the fight for safe, legal, and accessible abortion; equal pay for equal work; free or low-cost child care; affirmative action; and elimination of all legal and social restrictions that prevent women from playing an equal role in society.

Who will bring about change? Resolutions of the Second International took it as a given that the working class itself is the agent of its own liberation. In the words of Karl Marx, incorporated into the founding rules of the First International, “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.”[10] This same idea is at the heart of the rarely sung second verse of “The Internationale”:

We want no condescending saviors

To rule us from a judgment hall;

We workers ask not for their favors;

Let us consult for all.

To make the thief disgorge his booty

To free the spirit from its cell,

We must ourselves decide our duty,

We must decide, and do it well.[11]

The long history of this fight for working-class self-emancipation extends back to the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and other revolutionary overturns around the world in which the working class entered onto the stage of history and sought to transform it—“storming the heavens,” as Marx described working people during the Paris Commune.[12]

By linking up with the Second International’s tradition and legacy— without overlooking its contradictions and weaknesses—those coming to the socialist movement today can take their place as part of this proud history.

About This Edition

This book is organized by congress. For each of the congresses, an introductory note is included that highlights the basic facts of the gathering and the key debates that took place there.

Within the chapters, resolutions are preceded by a short note that explains where the resolution came from, its author or presenter, and other relevant information. In this way, readers can judge for themselves the resolution’s weight, importance, and character.

Many of the resolutions contain references to ones adopted at congresses. To assist the reader, references are provided throughout the book to the page number where these earlier resolutions can be found.

As noted previously, this volume is the first complete English-language collection of the resolutions adopted by the nine congresses of the Second International between 1889 and 1912.

French, German, and English were the three official languages of the Second International. The majority of its resolutions were thus prepared in all three languages. For this book the English-language versions that were prepared or published at the time have been utilized, where possible. These versions were how the resolutions came to be known among socialists in the English-speaking world.

Most resolutions and motions, however, were drafted in either French or German, and some of the original English translations were not particularly readable or even accurate. All the resolutions have therefore been edited for both content and readability, in consultation with the French and German versions.

Moreover, while official proceedings of the congresses were published in German (all nine) and French (six of them), only one congress had its proceedings published in English (1896). For this reason, a considerable number of the resolutions were not published at all in English and had to be translated for this volume in their entirety. For a listing of where each resolution came from, readers can consult the section on Sources for Resolutions.

In preparing this volume, the masterful bibliography of the Second International prepared by Georges Haupt was indispensable.[13] Another useful resource is the twenty-three volume Histoire de la IIe Internationale, published in Geneva by Minkoff Reprint.

Not included in this collection are the resolutions and motions adopted between congresses by the International Socialist Bureau—the Second International’s executive body. While these resolutions are significant and deserve study, they nevertheless do not possess the authority of resolutions adopted by the congresses themselves.[14]

Three online archival collections have been especially valuable: the Second International Archives at the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (International Institute of Social History, IISG); the Camille Huysmans Archive (Archief van Camille Huysmans) at AMSAB-ISG; and the Fonds Georges Haupt at Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH).[15]

A number of individuals have assisted in various aspects of the book. Among these, three deserve special mention: John Riddell, who provided general editorial collaboration, helped with translation, and contributed in numerous other ways; Bob Schwarz, who helped with research and editing; and Tom Alter, who made a number of useful editorial suggestions.

I also wish to acknowledge the help of John Barzman, Eric Blanc, Nisha Bolsey, Sebastian Budgen, Tineke Faber of the International Institute of Social History, Helen Ford at the University of Warwick Modern Records Centre, Daniel Gaido, Christine Gauvreau and Laura Katz Smith at the Connecticut State Library, Sophie Garrett at the University of Melbourne Archives, Leo Greenbaum of the Yivo Archives, Hershl Hartman, Peter Hudis, Sean Larson, Paul LeBlanc, Ben Lewis, Lars Lih, John McDonald, Myra Mniewski, Jean-Numa Ducange, Nancy Rosenstock, Stephen R. Thornton, Gert Van Overstraeten of the Camille Huysmans Archive, and Lüko Willms. Any errors are the responsibility of the editor alone.

Mike Taber
August 2020

Footnotes

  1. No formal name for the Second International existed in the 1889–1914 period. It was usually referred to simply as “the International.” The appellation “Second” was meant to distinguish it from the International Workingmen’s Association— the First International—which existed from 1864 to 1876. ↑

  2. Karl Marx, “On the Hague Congress,” in Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 23 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1988), p. 256. ↑

  3. Huysmans’s estimate on the Second International’s strength is quoted in John De Kay, The Spirit of the International at Berne (Bern: the author, 1919), pp. 6–7. ↑

  4. From Grigorii Zinoviev’s report to the Communist International’s Second Congress (1920) on conditions for admission to the Third International. In John Riddell, ed., Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite! Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991), vol. 1, session 6, pp. 294–5 (original pagination). ↑

  5. In the Second International’s early years, Engels had strongly opposed attempts to create an international center similar to the First International’s General Council. He felt that such a move would be premature given the state of the movement at the time, and could lead to nonrevolutionary currents attempting to impose their perspectives on the world movement as a whole. For example, in 1891, on the eve of the Second International’s Brussels Congress, Engels wrote, “The Brussels chaps who are, in their heart of hearts, themselves Possibilists [reformists] and have stood by the latter as long as they could, have made a complete volte-face; they aim at becoming the General Council of a new International” (letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, August 9, 1891, in Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 49, 224). Engels wrote along similar lines in his July 20, 1891, letter to Laura Lafargue (Collected Works, vol. 49, p. 221). ↑

  6. Rosa Luxemburg, “Reconstruction of the International,” in John Riddell, ed., Lenin’s Struggle for a Revolutionary International: Documents: 1907–1916: The Preparatory Years (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1984), chapter 4, p. 187 (original pagination). ↑

  7. In his “Notes of a Publicist,” Lenin cited Rosa Luxemburg as the author of this metaphor, referring to her alleged words: “Since August 4, 1914, German Social Democracy has been a stinking corpse.” (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 33, p. 210). Luxemburg never actually wrote those words, however.

    Lenin was perhaps referring to the opening lines of Luxemburg’s 1915 article, “Rebuilding the International,” which he might have been recalling from memory: “On August 4th, 1914, German Social Democracy abdicated politically, and at the same time the Socialist International collapsed.” In Robert Looker, ed., Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings (New York: Grove Press, 1974), p. 197.

    Luxemburg also used the corpse analogy elsewhere. For example, her article “Das Versagen der Führer” (the failure of the leaders), published in the January 11, 1919, issue of Rote Fahne, stated, “Above all the next time must be devoted to the liquidation of the USPD, this rotting corpse, decayed products of which are poisoning the revolution” (Gesammelte Werke, Band 4, 526). In this article, however, Luxemburg was referring to the USPD (Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany), not to German Social Democracy as a whole. Thanks to Peter Hudis and Paul LeBlanc for research assistance. ↑


  8. Following a rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886, to support striking workers, a bomb was thrown at police officers by an unknown person, after which the police opened fire on the crowd, killing a number of workers. The incident was used to stage a frame-up against the workers’ leaders, who were anarchists. Eight were tried and convicted of murder. Four were hanged, and one committed suicide before his scheduled execution. The Haymarket martyrs were defended and honored by the workers’ movement throughout the world, and they became associated with the establishment of May Day as an international workers’ holiday. ↑

  9. Karl Kautsky, The Road to Power (1909), available at Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch01.htm. ↑

  10. Karl Marx, “Provisional Rules of the Association,” in Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 20 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985), p. 14. ↑

  11. Various translations of the lyrics to “The Internationale” can be found on Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/ international.htm. ↑

  12. Karl Marx, letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, April 12, 1871, in Marx Engels Collected Works, vol. 44 (New York: International Publishers, 1989), p. 132. ↑

  13. Georges Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale, 1889–1914: Étude critique des sources, essai bibliographique (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1964). ↑

  14. A list of the resolutions adopted by the International Socialist Bureau can be found in Haupt, 257–76. See also Haupt, ed., Bureau Socialiste Internationale, vol. 1, 1900–1907: Comptes rendus des rénions, manifestes et circulaires (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1969). ↑

  15. The IISG Second International Archives can be accessed at https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH01299. The Camille Huysmans Archive can be accessed at https://opac.amsab.be/Record/120095483?sid=12519998. The Fonds Georges Haupt can be accessed at https://eurosoc.hypotheses.org/category/le-fonds-georges-haupt-georges-haupt-collection?lang=es_ES. ↑


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