Although spanning only the years 1869 to 1876, American participation in the International Workingmen's Association marks one of the most important attempts of the workingmen of the United States to meet the problems of labor on an international level.
On September 28, 1864, Henry L. Tolain and George L. Ogden sponsored a mass meeting of European trade unionists in London which organized the International Workingmen's Association--the First International. Well known among European radicals as the author of The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx was elected to the General Council even though he was not present at the meeting. Marx apparently assumed leadership of the council almost immediately because he wrote the “Inaugural Address,” which set forth the preliminary rules and program for the IWA. It proclaimed that political movements must be subordinate to economic emancipation of the worker.
To establish the International as a propaganda vehicle for international socialism, Marx organized it as a highly centralized body composed of national federations and local sections. Representatives of the federal councils met as the General Council and, using a system of foreign language secretaries, exercised ultimate authority for determining ideology, recognizing local sections, distributing funds, and disciplining members.
Until about 1869 the International concentrated on organizing trade unions. It encouraged independent workingmen's parties, promoted international cooperation among unionists, and assisted strikes by collecting funds and discouraging the importation of international strike breakers.
From this interest in the regulation of immigration came the IWA's initial interest in the United States. It was based on Georg Hegel's theory that labor in the United States could never participate in Marx's historical dialectic until sources of cheap, immigrant labor were cut off and the frontier closed. During the 1860's the Marxists tried to affiliate with the National Labor Union of William H. Sylvis, but the affiliation never took place because Sylvis died in 1869 and the NLU gradually adopted a policy advocating political action.
However, the International did receive strong support in the United States from immigrant radicals, particularly Germans, and from middle class reformers. The primary exponents of Marxism among the German population were Joseph Weydemeyer and Friedrich Sorge, both of whom had immigrated to the United States following the political upheavals of 1848. During the 1850's Weydemeyer published several unsuccessful socialist newspapers in New York City and formed the first Marxist organization in the United States, the General Workingmen's Alliance. Sorge, as the leader of the Communist Club, an educational discussion society in New York, was more a materialist-intellectual than a labor radical. However, the Six Weeks' War of 1866 between Prussia and Austria imbued both Sorge and the club with a revolutionary outlook. In 1867 the club declared its affiliation with the IWA, and about the same time it merged with the General Workingmen's Alliance, which in 1869 declared itself Section 1 of the International. Joined by other sections in the area in December, 1870, Section 1 organized a provisional central committee for the North American Federal Council. The following July the General Council recognized its authority over all sections in the United States.
The second strain of support for the International Workingmen's Association in the United States came from native-born members of the middle class who had been active in the reform movement of the 1840's. In 1869 several of these individuals, including feminists Victoria Claflin Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, and veteran labor leaders William West and Stephen Pearl Andrews, organized a socialist group known as the New Democracy or Political Commonwealth. In 1871 the New Democracy reorganized itself in New York as Sections 9 and 12 of the International.
Within this two-fold support for the International lay the roots of a serious division among American socialists. Although in part a power struggle, the division also self-consciously reflected the ideological split among European socialists. Orthodox Marxist doctrine stated that economic organization had to precede and provide a basis for political action. However, the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle rejected Marx's class analysis and strict party discipline and felt that political action was the only way to solve the problems of labor. In the United States, the Germans led by Sorge accepted the Marxist philosophy. The middle class reformers of Section 12, led by Victoria Woodhull, favored the philosophy of Lassalle and concerned themselves with broad areas of political reform, such as currency, education, and feminism.
Shortly after Section 12 joined the International in July, 1871, it complained to the General Council about Sorge's despotic control of the North American Federal Council. The Sorge faction countered that Section 12 was attempting to dilute the workers' cause with its bourgeois ideas of feminism and free love. As the internal division became more severe, both sides appealed to the General Council for support and finally decided to let the central committee expire under its statutory limitation. In March, 1872, the General Council expelled the dissenters of Section 12 and ruled that each section must be at least two-thirds workers to maintain the proletarian composition of the International. In the meantime, Sorge's faction had reorganized the federal council, and was in due course recognized by the General Council. The Woodhull faction also continued to function independently as a federal council, known variously as the Spring Street or Prince Street Federal Council, but it was never officially recognized.
In 1872 both factions held national conventions, the Sorge council in New York on July 8 and thirteen English-speaking sections in Philadelphia on July 9. The Philadelphia group formally reorganized itself as the American Confederation of the International Workingmen's Association and declared its right of self-regulation. Both factions also elected delegates to the IWA conference at The Hague in September, 1872. The confederation elected William West as its representative, and the federal council sent Sorge.
The Hague conference was an important one for the International, and one in which Americans played a key role. The General Council met strong dissatisfaction with Marx's tight control from the followers of Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, but Marx was able to stave off the attack. Packed with Sorge's friends, the council was also able to overcome an attack from the American Lassalleans and it refused to seat West. Perhaps the most important action, however, was the council's vote to move its headquarters to New York City to escape the unfavorable political conditions in Europe. Sorge became the new general secretary, and neither Marx nor Engels made the move to New York. Thus control of the International subsequently fell to the Americans.
The expulsion of the Bakuninist sections and the unfavorable political situation contributed to the rapid disintegration of the International in Europe. In the United States, however, it remained alive for several more years under the vigorous leadership of Sorge.
Sorge's federal council and the rival confederation restored peace momentarily in 1875, but dissension continued. A conflict over the operation of the New York City local council resulted in the abolition of the North American Federal Council on April 11, 1874, and the assumption of its duties by the General Council. The question of political action also continued to plague the International. In 1873 many members urged it to harmonize its objectives with those of non-socialist workers, but the German-born Marxists refused. Neither would they relent on the question of a socialist political party, and at the 1873 conference they categorically rejected all cooperation with existing political parties.
Eventually, however, declining membership and a strong internal push forced the German leadership to join in forming a national, socialist party in the United States. In July of 1876, delegates from nineteen sections dissolved the International and joined members of the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America, the Labor Party of Illinois, and the Sociopolitical Labor Union of Cincinnati in launching the Workingmen's Party of the United States. The next year this group reorganized as the Socialist Labor Party, thus completing the transformation of the IWA.
