The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1915-12-30

The old international was an at
tempt to build an international work
ing class organization with Socialist
ideas by starting on the roof and
working down, The only modern la
Dor unions existing al that time in
Europe were the English. A few Eng
fish labor leaders showed some sym
pathy for the International but there
was no Socialist spirit in the English
trade unions and the International
never gained firm footing among
them.
In Germany, on the other hand, the
! Lassallean Socialist Party in 1863
| rather anticipated the organization
1 of labor unions, without, however,
adopting MARKHAM principles at the
fstart. 1t was the Eisenaches Social.
list Party, organized in 1869 by men
like Liebknecht and Bebel in oppo.
sition to the Lassalleans, that con-
nected itself through its leaders with
the old International and adopted
most of its program.
However, the immediate demands
enumerated in the Communist Mani
festo of 1S47 were still far ahead of
the practical possibilities of German
politics in the sixties of the nine
teenth century. This program met
with the opposition of the vast ma
jority of petty bourgeois and artisan
radicals, whose sympathies the Ger
man Socialists were trying to gain.
When Bebel, at the Germany party
congress at Stuttgart, in 1870, forced
the land-taxing plank of the congress
of the old International of Basic,
1853; through by resolution. he imme-
diately alienated the support of the
radical Democrats of Southern Ger
many from his party. 1t was another
case of making an immediate demand
that was too radical for the prevail
ing conditions.
Thus it happened that the old In
ternational never gained firm foot
hold among the labor organizations
of its day. 1t never consisted of any
thing else but widely scattered groups
of men of all classes, and it's most
prominent members were exiles and
could not take part in the internal
affairs of their nations. 1t never had
the enormous membership, with
which it was credited by the leading
statesmen of Europe, and it was al
ways short of funds.
Barred from effective participation
in national politics, the leaders of the
old international attempted to exert
their influence in international poll
tics This, likewise, proved to be a
very difficult and impractical under
taking. Not only were the members
i of the old International unable to
agree about the question, whether di-
rect action or political action was the
most effective method of taking part
in the class struggles of their day,
but they also came to blows over the
relations between national and inter-
national politics.
During the lifetime of the old In
ternational from 1864 to 1872, the
following wars engaged the attention
of it's members and of the different
national labor groups: The war of
Prussia and Austria against Denmark
in 1864; the war of Prussia against
Austria in 1866; the war Of Ger
many against France in 1901.
These wars were a heritage of pre-
vious international entanglements,
which had resulted in the Crimean
war of 1854 to 1856, and the war of
the Franco-Sardinian alliance against
Austria in 1859. Marx -Engels, who
dominated the old International, die
tated it's international politics accord
| ing to views which they had pre-
viously expressed about these earlier
wars. Lasalle, who led the German
Socialists in 1868, had likewise ex-
pressed himself on the same problems
previously to the organization of his
German Socialist party, whose inter-
national politics he dictated
MARKS DILEMMA
1t is a remarkable fact that Marx
Engeis, the exiled leaders of Inter.
nationalism, took an attitude in these
questions, which, in effect, though
not Intentionally, was more national.