page_title: International Workers' Association
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: International Workers' Association / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Bakunin speaking to members of the IWA at the congress in Basel 1869. Deutsch: Bakunin spricht zu Mitgliedern der Internationalen Arbeiterassoziation auf dem Kongress von Basel 1869. Das Bild wurde vom spanischen Internationalisten Rafael Farga Pellicer gezeichnet.
context_page_description: The International Workers' Association is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives.
  Based on the principles of revolutionary unionism, the international aims to create unions capable of fighting for the economic and political interests of the working class and eventually, to directly abolish capitalism and the state through "the establishment of economic communities and administrative organs run by the workers."
  At its peak the International represented millions of people worldwide. Its member unions played a central role in the social conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s. However the International was formed as many countries were entering periods of extreme repression, and many of the largest IWA unions were shattered during that period.
  As a result, by the end of World War II all but one of the International's branches had ceased to function as unions, a slump which continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s. It would not be until the late 1970s, with the death of Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco, that it would see a major union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo reform within its ranks.
caption: Bakunin speaking to members of the IWMA at the congress in Basel, 1869.
exif: {}