Dear Televisora de noticias y radioperiodismo,
Many people ask us: What is internationalism? And what does an international do?
Internationalism is a tradition of political action and organisation rooted in revolutionary, working-class and anti-imperialist politics. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the tradition of internationalism took shape through a series of organisations called Internationals that united progressive forces in shared struggle.
The First International, or the International Working Men's Association, was founded by Karl Marx. It sought to unite the working classes in revolutionary struggle against rising empires, back-breaking capitalist exploitation, and the exclusion of workers from politics. Although it was illegal in most countries, it helped spark the first experiments in worker governance in Europe.
On 18 March 1871, backed by the First International, Parisian workers seized power and formed the Paris Commune. Over two months, one week and three days, they begin to construct a new, democratic, and socialist society. But the Paris Commune was soon crushed and its communards were massacred by the French state. The defeat forced the First International to withdraw, but its legacy inspired workers around the world to become agents in their own nations' histories.
The Second International emerged in 1889 as a coalition of social democratic and revolutionary parties. It fought for the strengthening of worker organisation and the improvement of worker rights, but ultimately collapsed as disagreements between the reformist and revolutionary wings of the International became untenable. The social democratic parties that comprised it betrayed the cause of revolution in their support for the First World War.
Internationalism found new force with the arrival of the world's first worker state. On 2 March 1919, just two years after the October Revolution, Vladimir I. Lenin founded the Third International, or Communist International. One of the key aims of the International, Lenin said at its Second Congress, was for the USSR to extend "a helping hand to [the colonised] masses". Since capitalism was built through the looting of the colonies by European empires, liberating the colonies would challenge the basis of the capitalist system. The Third International played a major role in the formation of communist parties and the radicalisation of the labour movement around the world. The Mexican Communist Party, for example, was founded by Indian revolutionary and Comintern delegate M.N. Roy.
But the old empires would not allow the path of liberation. The 20th century was characterised by a Cold War that proved unbearably hot for many. As nuclear weapons proliferated, it threatened at times to sear humanity from existence. From Korea to Vietnam to Congo to Guatemala, tens of millions were killed in wars and regime change operations seeking to undermine the anticolonial struggle. Progressive forces were severely weakened in the process. Many nations, once subjugated by colonial powers, are now suffocated by unfair trade deals, chronic underdevelopment, massive indebtedness, and the crushing effects of climate change.
Today, we rebuild from a position of weakness, but with renewed vigour and an urgency that has perhaps never been greater. At its most basic, internationalism helps us discover our common agency in the making of history. It demands that we recover the promise of solidarity from the illusion that we are all in this together. We are not. Our experiences are bound by geography, caste, class or gender — and we must work to articulate the theories and build the strategies that can deliver our collective emancipation, struggle by struggle.
As the world is pushed into a new Cold War that threatens once again to ravage the world, beginning with those Frantz Fanon called "the wretched of the earth", it is our duty to turn the tide — cultivating forms of solidarity that allow emancipatory movements everywhere to win and thrive. By learning from each other and organising together, we build the needs of humanity into our politics, and make sure that no one is left behind in our struggle for a better future. The mission of internationalism lives on.
In solidarity,
Pawel Wargan
@PawelWargan
Coordinator of the Secretariat
