Post on 20-Feb-2023
Early views on internationalism: Marxist socialists vsliberals
(in: Magaly Rodríguez García, “Labour Internationalism: Different Times,Different Faces”, in Special issue of Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie enGeschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, vol. 84, 2006, no. 4, p. 1049-1073)
Magaly Rodríguez GarcíaResearch Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research –FlandersVrije Universiteit Brussel
Recent decades have witnessed a significant increase in
studies on labour internationalism, focusing mainly on
socialist internationalism. There are good reasons for such
attention to this subject. Certainly, the main international
labour organizations of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, prior to 1945, were largely influenced by Marxist
or other socialist ideologies. It is the aim of this paper
to demonstrate that an exclusive interest in the impact of
socialist internationalism on the international labour
movement is, however, not justified, and that there are
other forms of internationalism, such as liberal
internationalism, which also merit attention.
First of all, one needs to take account of the commonalities
between the socialist and liberal ideologies present in the
labour movement. International organizations such as the
International Working Men’s Association (IWMA or First
International, 1864-1876) and the International Federation
I am indebted to my PhD supervisors Guy Vanthemsche and Marcel van derLinden, and to Bruno Coppieters, Nick Deschacht, Danielle Helbig, MichelHuysseune, Jeroen Roppe, Rik Röttger, Augustín Santella, PatrickStouthuysen, Wayne Thorpe and Joost Vaesen for their critical remarks andsuggestions and the interesting discussions on this subject.
of Trade Unions (IFTU, 1901-1945) believed in the
international class struggle and in the long-term need to
overthrow the capitalist system, but they were also
convinced, as were many liberals, that the struggle for
political and social reforms needed first to be a national
struggle, and they shared with liberal internationalist
thinkers the Enlightenment’s belief in historical progress.
Furthermore, liberal beliefs concerning internationalism
played a key role in the creation of organizations of great
importance to the working class, such as, in 1919 the
International Labour Organization (ILO). During the
twentieth century, international non-Communist trade-union
organizations were also influenced by liberal values in
their defence of free trade, economic integration and
capital-labour co-operation within a system of collective
bargaining. These were all seen as good tools for raising
the living standards of workers at the national level, and
preserving peace at the international level. These trade-
union organizations also tried to strengthen liberal forms
of democracy, and, along with many liberals, they believed
that progress, modernity and development could best be
guaranteed by supranational structures (such as those set up
for European unification), in close co-operation with
national and international labour organizations.
This article attempts to answer the following question: how
did Marxist socialists and liberals view internationalism
and the role of the working class within this process? The
paper makes a distinction between Marxist-socialist and
2
liberal internationalism – elaborating on Eric Hobsbawm’s
study on working-class internationalism1 – and focuses on
the period between the eighteenth and early twentieth
centuries, when the main tenets of both schools of thought
were laid down. In examining this question, I treat Marxist
socialism and liberalism as the dominant schools of thought
with regard to pre-WWII internationalism2. I also use the
nineteenth-century terms ‘liberal’ and ‘Marxist socialist’
for thinkers who did not necessarily define themselves as
such, but who could be regarded as the forerunners of the
liberal and Marxist-socialist schools of thought.
A precise definition of the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘Marxist
socialist’ does not exist. As Michael Doyle writes, “[t]here
1 Eric HOBSBAWM, “Working-class internationalism”, in Frits VAN HOLTHOON& Marcel VAN DER LINDEN, eds, Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830-1940,Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1988, p. 3-16. The importance of ‘bourgeois-liberal’ forms of internationalism was alsoacknowledged by socialist theoreticians and militants. See for example:Karl MARX & Frederick ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, London,Penguin Books, 2004, 81 p.; Vladimir LENIN, “Draft and explanation of aprogramme for the Social-Democratic Party”, in Marxism-Leninism on ProletarianInternationalism, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1972, p. 44-45. See alsoJosé Carlos MARIÁTEGUI, “Internationalism and Nationalism”, in Newsletterof International Labour Studies, 1986, nrs. 30-31, p. 3-8; Perry ANDERSON,“Internationalism: A Breviary”, in New Left Review, vol. 14, March-April2002, 14 p., available online at www.newleftreview.net/NLR24801.shtmlSome parallels between liberal and socialist internationalism are alsooutlined in Gregory CLAEYS, “Reciprocal dependence, virtue and progress:some sources of early socialist cosmopolitanism and internationalism inBritain, 1750-1850”, in F. VAN HOLTHOON & M. VAN DER LINDEN,Internationalism in the Labour Movement, op. cit., p. 235-258.2 Christian-democracy, anarchism, syndicalism and Islam also developedtheir own views on internationalism, but they were less influential inpre-WWII international politics and the establishment of internationalinstitutions such as the League of Nations and the ILO.For the anarchist and syndicalist positions on internationalism, see thearticles by Constance Bantman, Ralph Darlington and Wayne Thorpe in thisvolume.
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is no canonical description of Liberalism”3. This also
applies to Marxist socialism. Nonetheless, those who we tend
to call ‘liberal’ or ‘Marxist socialist’ share certain
characteristics that could be considered typical of liberals
or Marxist socialists: the defence of “individual freedom,
political participation, private property, and equality of
opportunity”4 in the first case, and the emphasis on the
materialist conception of history (historical materialism),
an analysis of the relations of production within a
capitalist society and the inevitable replacement of the
latter by a classless society, in the second5. As for the
term ‘internationalism’, I use it here in a broad sense,
meaning all types of initiatives (both formal and informal)
that transcended (or aimed to transcend) national borders,
for example the promotion of ‘universal’ values and calls
for free trade, conferences involving individuals of
different nationalities for the promotion of international
law and peace, and the establishment of international
organizations.
Liberal and Marxist-socialist theories emerged in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which were a period of
radical political and socio-economic change in European
society. Continuous wars until 1871; revolutions in3 Michael W. DOYLE, Ways of War and Peace, New York, W.W. Norton & Company,1997, p. 206.4 Ibid, p. 206-207.5 Rodrigo BORJA, “Marxismo”, in Rodrigo BORJA, Enciclopedia de la política,Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998, p. 624-628; RodrigoBORJA, “Liberalismo”, idem, p. 586-589.For an authoritative account of the evolution of the terms ‘Marxist’ and‘Marxism’, see: George HAUPT, “From Marx to Marxism”, in Georges HAUPT,Aspects of International Socialism 1871-1914, Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986, p. 1-22.
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industry, trade, communications, technology and science;
state-building; strong economic fluctuations; demographic
explosion; urbanization, and violent uprisings: all had far-
reaching effects on the development of liberal and Marxist-
socialist theories and practices. Indeed, these events
“inspired democratic and revolutionary hopes across the
European continent”6. Here my focus be on the liberal and
Marxist-socialist theoretical constructions with regard to
internationalism, touching only briefly on the historical
context in which they developed and the difficulties
encountered by liberal and Marxist activists when trying to
put their ideals into practice.
The article unfolds in two sections. The first examines
the commonalities between the internationalist views of
Marxist socialists and liberals (i.e., the principles for
achieving successful international co-operation), while the
second section focuses on the divergent development of
Marxist-socialist and liberal internationalist thought, and
the differences between socialist and liberal objectives,
views on the capital-labour relationship and views on the
role of the working class in the process of transcending
national boundaries. Given the vast quantity of original
material produced by socialist and liberal thinkers, I will
confine myself in this paper to discussing the main tenets
of Marxist-socialist and liberal views on internationalism
as found in the works of some of the most prominent figures
of these schools of thought (Karl Marx, Frederick Engels,
6 Lise VOGEL, Marxism and the Oppression of Women. Toward a Unitary Theory, NewBrunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1983, p. 56.
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Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky for the socialist current
and Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Lujo
Brentano, John A. Hobson and Woodrow Wilson for the
liberals), and in current scientific literature.
Commonalities between the Marxist-socialist and liberal
internationalist approaches
Heirs of the Enlightenment
Both the Marxist-socialist and the liberal schools of
thought are products of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment. On the philosophical level, Marxist theory
and its Leninist interpretation were influenced by Hegel’s
dialectical philosophy and Feuerbach’s materialism, while
liberal internationalist thought was strongly indebted to
Kant’s moral philosophy and Bentham’s utilitarianism. A
belief in progress, science, and the ability of human beings
to transform the world according to the dictates of reason
was prominent among these thinkers. They had a high opinion
of philosophy. According to the French republican, Jules
Barni, “the soul of the philosopher reflects that of
humanity; however, what was vague and obscure in the latter
has come clear and precise in the former”7. Similarly, Karl
Marx, in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844), referred
7 Jules BARNI, Discours prononcé à la distribution des prix du Collège Royal deCharlemagne par M. Barni, professeur agregé de philosophie, Paris, 1842, quoted inSudhir HAZAREESINGH, “Neo-Kantian Moralist and Activist: Jules Barni andthe Establishment of the Municipalist Republic”, in Sudhir HAZAREESINGH,Intellectual Founders of the Republic. Five Studies in Nineteenth-Century French PoliticalThought, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 233.
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to philosophy as “the head of (this) emancipation”8. Reason9
stood, then, against tradition and superstition. To both
Marxists and liberals, the use of reason – by means of
concepts – implied universality: concepts and ideas could be
used to achieve freedom, equality, justice, peace and
democracy: in other words, to achieve progress on a
worldwide scale or to change the world altogether10.
Marxist socialism and liberalism emerged in reaction to
authoritarian regimes and the violation or negation of
individual liberties. Absolutism, colonialism and
imperialism were seen as forms of aggression that needed to
be abolished, for they led to war and impeded the
continuation of liberal or revolutionary reforms which would
otherwise lead to the fulfilment of human potential.
Education played a central role for both socialists and
liberals, as it promoted the use of reason and, thus,
freedom, progress and equality. According to Marxists and
liberals, the negation of these aims would result in violent
conflict11. 8 Karl MARX, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (Introduction), 1844,available online at www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/index.htm9 Kant differentiated “pure reason” (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781) from“practical reason” (Kritik der practischen Vernunft, 1788): the first refers tohis theory of knowledge, the second to his system of ethics. What ourtheoretical reason cannot prove can at least – according to Kant – bequestioned by our morality. Justus HARTNACK, Breve historia de la filosofía,Madrid, Ediciones Cátedra, 1994, p. 203-212.10 Herbert MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution. Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, Boston,Beacon Press, 1964, p. 254; Mark W. ZACHER & Richard A. MATTHEW,“Liberal International Theory: Common Threads, Divergent Strands”, inCharles W. KEGLEY, Controversies in International Relations Theory. Realism and theNeoliberal Challenge, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1995, p. 111-113.11 Jeremy BENTHAM, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London,The Athlone Press, University of London, 1970, p. 66, 164; John StuartMILL, Utilitarianism, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1882, p. 15, 20-21;
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The two schools of thought shared an instrumentalist view of
the state. For both of them the state was a finite empirical
reality, and could not in itself be regarded as a
transcending idea, but it served the concretization of
transcending values such as liberty, justice and equality.
Marxist socialists and liberals assigned the state an
important role, although to a different degree and from very
different perspectives. Liberals wanted a state that
enforced a (minimal) set of laws in favour of the individual
– one that provided infrastructure and public services aimed
at the creation of equal opportunities for all individuals
in society. Liberals believed that these objectives could be
achieved at home and abroad by means of economic and moral
progress, and appropriate social reforms within the existing
economic order. The spread of liberal democracy would, in
other words, be a vehicle for the achievement of individual
freedom12.
Marxists regarded the latter as an illusion, as the
antagonism within the class society curtailed individual
freedom and “bred enmity among the peoples”; their aim,
therefore, was the abolition of prevailing conditions, which
guaranteed the existence of class antagonisms, and theH. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, op. cit., p. 254-255, 287-288; K. MARX & F.ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 11-12, 32-33; M.A.RIFF, ed., Dictionary of Modern Political Ideologies. Manchester, ManchesterUniversity Press, 1987, p. 151. 12 F. H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuit of Peace. Theory and Practice in the History ofRelations Between States, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963, p.108-112; Stanley HOFFMANN, “The crisis of liberal internationalism”, inForeign Policy, vol. 98, 1995, (p. 3 in internet version); Immanuel KANT,Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1917,p. 107-116.
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creation of a new, universal, classless order. They viewed
the state as an instrument of the ruling class (the
bourgeoisie in a capitalist society) and called for its
progressive abolition through the establishment of a
classless socialist society. Only a socialist state would be
fully capable of providing the necessary services (such as
education, health care, infrastructure, etc.) for all
members of society13. At the highest stage of human
development (communism), when the state “becomes the real
representative of the whole society”, it “renders itself
unnecessary” and “dies out”14.
Universal peace was a central objective for both schools of
thought. Karl Marx described the International Working Men’s
Association as a “peace congress, as the union of the
working classes of the different countries must ultimately
make international wars impossible”15. By the same token,
prominent liberal and republican thinkers such as Jeremy13 H. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, op. cit., p. 288-294; Karl MARX, “OnPoland: Speech at the international meeting in London dedicated to theseventeenth anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1830. November 1847”,in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 60; K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of theCommunist Party, op. cit., p. 29-30, 33.14 “As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held insubjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle forexistence based upon our present anarchy in production, with thecollisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing moreremains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is nolonger necessary.” Frederick ENGELS, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”(Chapter Three: Historical Materialism), in Marx-Engels Selected Works, vol.3, available online at www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-uto/index.htm15 Karl MARX, “On the Attitude of the International Working Men’sAssociation to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom”, inMarx-Engels Collected Works, vol. 20, available online atwww.marxists.org/history/international/iwma/documents/1867/peace-league-speech.htm
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Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Jules
Barni favoured the organization of international meetings to
discuss the best means for achieving peace16.
Sustainable peace would result from the transformation
of international relations, which would take its departure
from the national level. With this thesis in common, Marxist
socialism and liberalism are variants of the evolutionary
theory of the Enlightenment. As Hobsbawm states, “virtually
all thinkers deriving from the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment took the view that the evolution of human
society proceeded from the smaller to the larger scale”17.
This was a “force in history” which, according to Engels,
could not be stopped: “Since the end of the Middle Ages,
history has been working towards the formation of large
national states in Europe”18.
Indeed, the existence of nation-states was crucial to both
Marxist socialists and liberals, although for different
reasons. For Marxists, the development of nation-states
during the nineteenth century was both an achievement of
modernity and a necessary framework for the development of
modern industry, technology and science. It was, in this
sense, a first step towards internationalism. To them it was
“self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working
class must organize itself at home as a class and that its
16 S. HAZAREESINGH, “Neo-Kantian Moralist and Activist”, op. cit., p. 251-256.17 E. HOBSBAWM, “Working-class internationalism”, op. cit., p. 5.18 Frederick ENGELS, “The role of force in history”, in Marxism-Leninism,op. cit., p. 63.
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own country is the immediate arena of its struggle”19.
Therefore, “the struggle of the proletariat with the
bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle”20. It was the
task of the members of the First International to “use their
utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men’s
associations of their respective countries into national
bodies”21. To liberals, the nation-state was the creation of
free citizens for the protection of their liberty by means
of participation in public life. Liberal regimes were seen
as a guarantee of the establishment of constitutional
governments, the emancipation of individuals and peaceful
foreign relations among themselves (Kant’s ‘Pacific
Federation’). Engagement in nation-building was thus seen as
a progressive cause, aimed at ending absolutist regimes:
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European and
American liberals led revolutionary uprisings in both
continents and strove for citizens’ participation in the
newly established governments22.
From the importance attached to the nation-state there
followed another view shared by Marxist socialists and
liberals: that successful international co-operation was
possible only on the basis of the principle of self-
19 Karl MARX, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, in Marxism-Leninism, op.cit., p. 131.20 K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 18.21 Karl MARX, “General rules of the International Working Men’sAssociation”, in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 127.22 P. ANDERSON, “Internationalism: A Breviary”, op. cit. (p. 2-3, 5 ininternet version); M.W. DOYLE, Ways of War and Peace, op. cit., p. 253-257; S.HOFFMANN, “The crisis of liberal internationalism”, op. cit. (p. 1-2 ininternet version); I. KANT, Perpetual Peace, op. cit., p. 128-137.
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determination, as this principle guaranteed a relationship
between equals. Engels viewed the formation of nation-states
as “an indispensable precondition for the establishment of
harmonious international co-operation”23. In a letter to
Kautsky, he referred to Ireland and Poland as “two nations
in Europe [that] are not only entitled, but obliged to be
national before they become international”, since “they are
most of all international when they are truly national”24.
According to Marxists, the recognition of the equality of
all nations would remove “every trace of national distrust,
estrangement, suspicion and enmity”25 and would, therefore,
promote solidarity among workers and universal peace.
The position of nineteenth-century Marxist socialists on the
national question was ambiguous, however. Engels, for
instance, distinguished between “historic” and “non-historic
peoples” and claimed that “apart from the Poles, the
Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has
a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs
lack the primary historical, geographical, political and
industrial conditions for independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which
from the time when they achieved the first, most elementary
stage of civilization already came under foreign sway, or
which were forced to attain the first stage of civilization
only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will
23 F. ENGELS, “The role of force in history”, op. cit., p. 63.24 Frederick Engels to Karl Kautsky, 7 February 1882, in Marxism-Leninism,op. cit., p. 62-63. 25 Vladimir LENIN, “Corrupting the workers with refined nationalism”, inMarxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 115.
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never be able to achieve any kind of independence”26. So
these Marxists did not support all liberation movements, but
only those in nations which, in their view, had already
achieved a certain level of political, economic and cultural
development. It was only during the twentieth century, and
particularly after 1917, that Marxists more systematically
supported independence movements throughout the world. The
Soviet state itself was built according to a federal
pattern, with a constitution claiming to guarantee the
national sovereignty of the Union republics and their formal
right to secession27.
Similarly, nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberals held
to the belief that national self-determination would
contribute to international peace. In Considerations on
Representative Government (1862), John Stuart Mill argued that
“Great Britain could do perfectly well without her colonies”
and that “on every principle of morality and justice, she
ought to consent to their separation”28. In the first half
of the twentieth century, the best-known liberal defender of
national self-determination as a precondition for successful
international co-operation was US President Woodrow Wilson.
In a speech delivered to the US Senate in 1917, Wilson
26 Frederick ENGELS, “Democratic Pan-Slavism”, in Neue Rheinsiche Zeitung,1849, available online atwww.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1849/02/15.htm27 Miklós MOLNAR, Marx, Engels et la politique internationale, Paris, Gallimard,1975, p. 72-73.For a comprehensive analysis of Engels’ position on the nationalquestion, see: Roman ROSDOLSKY, “Engels and the ‘Nonhistoric’ Peoples:the National Question in the Revolution of 1848”, in Critique. Journal ofSocialist Theory, vol. 18-19, 1987, 220 p. 28 John Stuart MILL, On Liberty & Considerations on Representative Government,Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1946, p. 311.
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defended the position that “only a peace between equals can
last”, and that “no peace can last or ought to last, which
does not recognize and accept the principle that governments
derive all their just powers from the consent of the
governed”29.
Nineteenth-century and pre-WWII socialist and liberal
international organizations reflected this principle of
“international co-operation among equals”. The First and
Second Internationals30, and the International Federation of
Trade Unions, were, for the most part, confined to political
parties and trade unions from the industrialized countries
of Europe and the American continent. By the same token,
during the nineteenth century, international meetings for
the promotion of international law (as advocated by
prominent liberals) were limited to the ‘civilized’ (i.e.
industrialized) nations of the world. At its foundation in
1919, the International Labour Organization consisted of
29 Woodrow Wilson’s speech delivered at the US Senate, 22 January 1917,in Woodrow WILSON, Messages, discours, documents diplomatiques relatifs à la Guerremondiale 18 août 1914 – 8 janvier 1918, Paris, Editions Bossard, vol. 1, 1919,p. 106-107. 30 The Socialist International (also called Second International,following the First which existed between 1864 and 1876) was organizedin 1889, with the help of Frederick Engels. Its first congress calledfor concrete measures, such as the international legal enactment of theeight-hour working day, and decided to call for an international day ofaction on May Day, 1890. The first years of the International weredominated by the struggle between Marxists and anarchists. In 1896, theanarchists were excluded from the International. From then on (until itscollapse in 1914), the Second International united social-democratic,reformist and revolutionary political parties and trade-unionorganizations. For an excellent account of the growing disagreements between theradical factions and the “opportunist” and “centrist” members within theSecond International, see: Georges HAUPT, “Lenin, the Bolsheviks and theSecond International”, in HAUPT, Aspects of International Socialism, op. cit., p.101-131.
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forty-seven member states, most of them from Europe and the
western hemisphere31.
The inevitability of internationalism
Internationalism was seen not only as an ideal of the
future, but also as a necessity. Adam Smith argued, in The
Wealth of Nations (1776), that international trade was both
inevitable and desirable. National wealth – capital – did
not produce for the national market only; increasing
production required new markets abroad for both the export
of products and the import of raw materials. So, by
definition, capitalism was (and still is) internationalist.
Other liberal thinkers, such as Jeremy Bentham, Richard
Cobden and David Ricardo, went further than Smith in that
they saw in the spread of commerce and free trade a means to
promote international co-operation and peace, as trade would
create interdependence among nations and bring mutual gains
to all. Free traders preached peace and disarmament in order
to prevent disruption in industrial production and
consumption. Peace would then be both a product of and a
precondition for free economic development32.
31 F.H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, op. cit., p. 94.In 2005, the ILO had 178 members. List of “Admission dates of Statemembers of the ILO”, requested from the ILO Official Relations Branch,at www.ilo.org The League of Nations had forty-eight member states in 1919-1920. At itsfoundation in 1945, the United Nations had fifty-one members, and 191 in2002. Most African and Asian states joined the UN from the 1960sonwards. United Nations, “Growth in United Nations Membership 1945-2005”, available online at www.un.org/Overview/growth.htm32 Jeremy BENTHAM, Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace, London, Sweet &Maxwell Limited, 1927, p. 25, 39; Tim DUNNE, “Liberalism”, in Steve
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The revolutionary, cosmopolitan character of the capitalist
mode of production was also the driving force behind
socialist internationalism33. Capitalism revolutionized the
mode of production by transforming the individual means of
production into a social means of production34. This,
according to Engels, led to a fundamental contradiction
between “socialized production and capitalist
appropriation”, as “the social product is appropriated bySMITH & John BAYLIS, eds, The Globalization of World Politics. An Introduction toInternational Relations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 189-190;Adam SMITH, The Wealth of Nations, London, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1947, p.397-416; J.C. MARIÁTEGUI, “Internationalism and Nationalism”, op. cit., p.4-5; M.W. ZACHER & R.A. MATTHEW, “Liberal International Theory”, op. cit.,p. 113-114.It is interesting to note the commonalities between late-nineteenth- andtwentieth-century liberals and social democrats in their defence ofgrowing economic interdependence, social reform and free trade asinstruments for raising people’s living standards and promotinguniversal peace. See for example: Jean JAURES, Internationalism and Peace,London, The Clarion Press, 1903, 8 p.; R.A. FLETCHER, “Cobden asEducator: The Free-Trade Internationalism of Eduard Bernstein, 1899-1914”, in The American Historical Review, vol. 88, 1983, nr. 3, p. 561-578;Michael HUBERMAN, A Ticket to Trade: Belgian Labour and Globalization Before 1914,Montreal, Université de Montréal, 2006, 58 p. 33 “The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world marketgiven a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in everycountry… In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations.” K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the CommunistParty, op. cit., p. 7-8.34 F. ENGELS, “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, op. cit. (p. 2, 14 ininternet version), described this process as follows: “Before capitalistproduction… the instruments of labor – land, agricultural implements,the workshop, the tool – were the instruments of labor of singleindividuals… [T]hey belonged as a rule to the producer himself. Toconcentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlargethem, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the presentday – this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production andof its upholder, the bourgeoisie… But the bourgeoisie… could nottransform these puny means of production into mighty productive forceswithout transforming them, at the same time, from means of production ofthe individual into social means of production only workable by acollectivity of men… Production itself changed from a series ofindividual into a series of social acts, and the production fromindividual to social products.”
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the individual capitalist”. The revolutionary character of
the capitalist mode of production led to its
internationalization: the development of productive forces
on the national level meant that a wider, international
community would eventually evolve. According to Marx, it
could not be otherwise, for “[t]he need of a constantly
expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie
over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle
everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions
everywhere”35.
To Marxist socialists, therefore, “the unity of the workers
of all countries is a necessity arising out of the fact that
the capitalist class, which rules over the workers, does not
limit its rule to one country”36. The advance of industry
would lead to the organization of workers at the national
and international levels. In the same way as capitalists
shared class interests with other members of the bourgeoisie
at home and abroad, and intended to defend them at all costs
(so went the Marxist-socialist argument), the proletariat of
all countries would organize itself as a class to pursue its35 K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 7.36 V.I. LENIN, “Draft and explanation of a programme for the Social-Democratic Party”, op. cit., p. 44. In his (indeed “powerful and original”, as Perry Anderson calls it)critique of internationalism – “Internationalism: A Critique”, in TomNAIRN, Faces of Nationalism. Janus Revisited, London, Verso, 1997, p. 26-27, 30 –Nairn emphasizes the role played by international capital in thedevelopment of socialist internationalism: “there is, naturally, nothingleft-wing about internationality. It is bourgeois, capitalist Progressincarnate. […] Internationalism is only common sense, for capitalistsand socialists alike. Because of the nature – cumulative, objective,irrefutable – of internationality”. However, Nairn’s conclusions arevery different from those outlined by Marxist socialists. According toNairn, internationalism reduces the power of nationality and remains atheoretical construction that has little to do with the real world.
17
historical mission. Marx and Engels, and later Lenin and
Trotsky, stressed the need for world revolution: the Paris
Commune of 1871 was taken as proof that an isolated workers’
revolution was doomed to fail37. International working-class
solidarity38 therefore grew out of political and economic
necessity.
Marxist socialists and liberals had a similar view of the
relationship between the national and international levels.
The ‘domestic analogy’, which “refers to the extension of
ideas that originated inside the liberal states to the
international realm”39, was typical not only of liberals.
Trotsky, for example, held that it applied to all nations:
“Foreign policy is everywhere and always a continuation of
domestic policy, for it is conducted by the same ruling
37 H. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, op. cit., p. 288, 291; K. MARX & F.ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 7-8, 11, 19-20, 33;Karl MARX, “The Hague Congress (Speech made at the meeting held inAmsterdam, September 1872)”, in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 39-40.Leon TROTSKY, in The Revolution Betrayed. What is the Soviet Union and where is it going?,New York, Pioneer Publishers, 1945, p. 187, wrote the following withregard to the Soviet Union: “The [Soviet] bureaucracy has not onlybroken with the past, but has deprived itself of the ability tounderstand the most important lessons of that past. The chief of theselessons was that the Soviet power could not have held out for 12 monthswithout the direct help of the international – and especially theEuropean – proletariat, and without a revolutionary movement of thecolonial peoples”.38 According to Richard HYMAN, “Imagined Solidarities: Can Trade UnionsResist Globalization?”, in Peter LEISINK, ed., Globalization and LabourRelations, Cheltenham, Elgar, 1999, p. 94, solidarity is and always wasimaginary. At the same time he recognizes that the concept of solidarity“may historically have provided inspiration and perhaps helped generatea reality approximating to the ideal”. Also Marcel VAN DER LINDEN, “The First International (1864-1876): AReinterpretation”, in Marcel VAN DER LINDEN, Transnational Labour History,Aldershot, Ashgate, 2003, p. 20 (footnote 6), draws an analogy betweenthe “(imagined) working-class community” and Benedict Anderson’s“imagined communities”. 39 T. DUNNE, “Liberalism”, op. cit., p. 187.
18
class and pursues the same historic goals”40. For Marxists,
the most important actors in (international) society were
not the public authorities or states, but classes. Political
representatives at all levels of governance were, in their
view, merely instruments of the ruling classes.
It may be concluded from this analysis of commonalities
between the two ideological currents that nationalist and
internationalist ideologies may very well complement each
other41 – confirming the aptness of Hobsbawm’s warning
against too rigid an application of the
nationalist/internationalist dichotomy to historical
material42. This thesis applies to both Marxist socialists
and liberals: there are plenty of examples in both
ideological currents (Thomas Paine, the Marquis de La
Fayette, Simón Bolívar, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Tom Mann,
40 L. TROTSKY, The Revolution Betrayed, op. cit., p. 186.41 Some authors make a distinction between the terms ‘nationalism’ and‘patriotism’. For Maurizio VIROLI, For Love of Country. An Essay on Patriotism andNationalism, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997, p. 161-163, the term‘nationalism’ has a negative connotation, as it refers to the “politicsof aggrandizement pursued by reactionary regimes”; ‘patriotism’, on theother hand, refers to the “love of country” which safeguards liberty andjustice. Other authors, such as Michael BILLIG, Banal Nationalism, London, Sage,1995, p. 57, prefer not to make such a distinction, for in practicethere is no clear demarcation line between the two. Indeed, “[e]ven themost extreme of nationalists will claim the patriotic motivation forthemselves”. Billig challenges the orthodox conceptions of nationalism and focuses onits everyday forms, which reflects national pride, and not necessarilychauvinism. Here I use this more nuanced definition of ‘nationalism’. 42 E. HOBSBAWM, “Working-class internationalism”, op. cit., p. 3, 13-15.L. VOGEL, Marxism and the Oppression of Women, op. cit., p. 115, makes this‘either/or’ distinction (‘either internationalist or nationalist’):“Most parties in the Second International supported the [First World]war, taking whichever side their national bourgeoisie happened to standon. Working-class internationalism seemed to vanish into thin air, as anarrow patriotism swept through socialist ranks”.
19
Woodrow Wilson and Rosa Luxemburg, to name but a few) who
strove at the same time both for the socialist emancipation
or liberal development of their own countries and for the
establishment of a socialist or liberal international
community.
Differences between the Marxist-socialist and liberal
internationalist approaches
Scientific socialism vs moral values
One of the main features that differentiated Marxist
socialism from liberalism was the use of economic and
historical research for the theoretical analysis of
(capitalist) society. Marxist socialists set out to arrive
at generalizations “not by mere speculations, but by
observing the phenomena of the material world”43. They used
both the deductive and the inductive methods in science to
guide their political action. Marx and Engels emphasized the
fact that their writings were scientific and did not simply
derive from moral principles. They insisted on the need for
an empirically based theory that would serve the cause of
socialism44. Their purpose was to go beyond their
43 Joseph DIETZGEN, “Scientific Socialism”, in Philosophical Essays, 1917,available online atwww.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/works/1870s/scientific-socialism.htm 44 Stephen HOBDEN & Richard Wyn JONES, “Marxist theories ofinternational relations”, in S. SMITH & J. BAYLIS, The Globalization of WorldPolitics, op. cit., p. 230; Eric HOBSBAWM, “Preface”, in G. HAUPT, Aspects ofInternational Socialism, op. cit., p. xii-xiii; G. HAUPT, “From Marx toMarxism”, op. cit., p. 10; K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the CommunistParty, op. cit., p. 22.
20
philosophical godfathers’ speculative approach to freedom
and justice. According to historical materialism, the
achievement of freedom and justice depended on material
conditions, foremost among which was the mode of production.
Under the conditions of capitalism, human emancipation had
to be viewed as something that would result from a
revolutionary class struggle for the abolition of private
property and wage labour45.
Liberal thinking differed from the Marxist school of
thought in its normative approach to social analysis. It
prescribed a set of standards that individuals and rulers
ought to follow in order to avoid conflict at home and
abroad. It emphasized the moral and ethical obligations that
the state and its citizens needed to comply with if their
relationship was to be a rational and peaceful one. The
government was to enforce a set of laws that would guarantee
the basic rights of its citizens, and which for progressive
liberals included, where labour was concerned, the right of
association. In 1824, the prohibition of labour combinations
in Great Britain was repealed. William Gladstone – liberal
statesman and four times British prime minister in the
second half of the nineteenth century – justified the
protection of trade unions on the grounds of equality
For a critical overview of the relationship between Marx (and hisscientific socialism) and the working class (or as the author definesit, “a Marxist biography of Marx”), see: Marcel VAN DER LINDEN, “Over degrenzen van het wetenschappelijke socialisme”, in Marcel VAN DER LINDEN& Ronald COMMERS, Marx en het “wetenschappelijke” socialisme, Antwerpen,Uitgeverij Leon Lesoil, 1982, p. 7-53.45 J. DIETZGEN, “Scientific Socialism”, op. cit. (p. 4, 5 in internetversion); H. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, op. cit., p. 260-261, 291-292; K.MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 3.
21
between workers and employers46. Other liberal thinkers from
the Continent reasoned in a similar way. The German Lujo
Brentano, for example, defended the legal protection of
workers and their organizations on the grounds that they
were an indispensable condition for the development of
labour. Moreover these organizations, according to Brentano,
could function perfectly well without the formation of a
new, socialist society47.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the so-called
‘new’, ‘social’ or ‘progressive’ liberals also began to
promote the use of scientific methods – such as the
quantification of prices and wages, demographic data, etc. –
for the analysis of society in general and of social issues
in particular. They did not reject the ethical approach to
society, however, but, as Michael Freeden puts it, linked
“the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’”48. This shift in the liberal
46 S. HOFFMANN, “The crisis of liberal internationalism”, op. cit. (p. 2 ininternet version); M.A. RIFF, Dictionary of Modern Political Ideologies, op. cit., p.145; J.S. MILL, On Liberty & Considerations, op. cit., p. 66-67; J.S. MILL,Utilitarianism, op. cit., p. 79-80, 90; M.W. ZACHER & R.A. MATTHEW, “LiberalInternational Theory”, op. cit., p. 111-112; Hans Joachim STÖRIG,Geschiedenis van de filosofie. De wijsbegeerte in de 19e en 20e eeuw: idealisme, positivisme,materialisme, marxisme, fenomenologie, existentialisme, Utrecht/Antwerpen, HetSpectrum, 1979, p. 56-58; Andrew FIALA, “Terrorism and the Philosophy ofHistory : Liberalism, Realism and the Supreme Emergency Exemption”, inEssays in Philosophy, vol. 3, 2002 (p. 2), available online atwww.humboldt.edu/~essays/fiala.html47 According to Lujo BRENTANO, La Question Ouvrière, Paris, Librairie H. LeSoudier, 1885, p. 4, 5, 115-116, 228, there could be no progress in asocialist society, for it challenged the two main conditions forprogress: property and the right of inheritance. “Sans propriété et sansdroit d’héritage, par conséquent sans inégalités sociales, le progrèsdans la civilisation est impossible.” 48 Michael FREEDEN, The New Liberalism. An Ideology of Social Reform, Oxford,Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 8; 6-10; Stefan Paul DUDINK, Deugdzaamliberalisme: sociaal liberalisme in Nederland 1870-1901, Amsterdam, InternationalInstitute of Social History, 1997, p. 260.
22
tradition had important consequences for the working class
and the (international) working-class movement, which I will
demonstrate later in this text.
Promotion of domestic and international institutions
According to Marxists, the class analysis of the world
capitalist economy required the universal association of
workers as a means to achieve social emancipation and peace.
It was this early call for international organization that
differentiated Marxist socialists from liberals. The
forerunners of the First International were organized
internationally between the 1830s and the 1850s, while no
national labour organizations in Europe and the American
continent were founded before the end of the 1860s49. In
1836, the Working Men’s Association (WMA) was formed in
London; its manifestos were addressed to the working classes
(though they appealed mainly to skilled craftsmen, rather
than unskilled factory workers) in different European
countries, stressing the need “to unite to teach our
brethren a knowledge [sic] of their rights and duties”50.
Workers from different European countries addressed each
other to express their solidarity and emphasize their common
49 E.g.: the Trades Union Congress, 1868; the Canadian Labour Union,1873; the American Federation of Labor, 1886; the German GeneralCommission of Trade Unions, 1890; the Belgian Commission syndicale and theSwedish Trade Union Confederation, 1898; the Argentinian Workers’Federation, 1901. 50 “The Working Men’s Association to the Working Classes of Europe, andespecially to the Polish People”, quoted in Arthur LEHNING, FromBuonarroti to Bakunin. Studies in International Socialism, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1970,p. 306.
23
struggle. Journals, pamphlets and manifestos circulated
throughout Europe, promoting the international organization
of workers and the international regulation of labour
issues. This contributed to the foundation, in the following
years, of various international workers’ societies such as –
among others – the Arbeiterbildungsverein (Association for the
Education of Working Men), the Brussels-based Association
démocratique (Democratic Association) and the London-based
Democratic Friends of All Nations, Fraternal Democrats, and
International Association51.
Whereas Marxist socialists envisaged the organization of
workers as being an international movement from the start,
the leading liberal thinkers of the time focused mainly on
the development of domestic institutions. A legal framework
was needed to protect individuals from tyranny and despotic
rule. The right to participate in public life and to
introduce legal regulations would guarantee liberty, justice
and order at home. The same principles ought to apply at the
international level: individual states, as much as
individuals within a given state, needed to be protected
from other, bellicose states52. The ‘domestic analogy’ was
therefore crucial to the liberal school of thought.
Furthermore, in the promotion of internationalist values,
liberals tended to emphasize the significance of particular51 Christine LATTEK, “The beginnings of socialist internationalism inthe 1840s: the ‘Democratic Friends of all Nations’ in London”, in F. VANHOLTHOON & M. VAN DER LINDEN, Internationalism in the Labour Movement, op. cit., p.259-261; E. HOBSBAWM, “Working-class internationalism”, op. cit., p. 10; A.LEHNING, From Buonarroti to Bakunin, op. cit., p. 151-168; M. VAN DER LINDEN,“The First International”, op. cit., p. 14. 52 I. KANT, Perpetual Peace, op. cit., p. 120-125, 128; J.S. MILL, On Liberty &Considerations, op. cit., p. 1-5.
24
nations (often France or Great Britain) as models of
emancipation and progress, whereas, where the realization of
their emancipatory ideals was concerned, Marxist socialists
viewed the national level as being subordinate to the
international.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal thinkers were,
like socialists, strong advocates of ‘international
brotherhood’, and actively promoted the organization of
international meetings to further universal peace. In the
second half of the nineteenth century, a series of
conferences and congresses was organized for the promotion
of international law, free trade and disarmament as a means
to achieve peace. But liberals relied on the spontaneous
pacifying power of trade and democracy and regarded the
establishment of permanent international organizations as
unnecessary. Kantian liberals, in particular, believed in
the ability of liberal republics to achieve universal peace
through regulation; likewise, the followers of Bentham and
Mill regarded international law as a necessary tool for
successful co-operation among states. Several nineteenth-
century (secular and religious) peace societies in Europe
and the American continent were strongly influenced by the
ideas of Bentham and Mill which favoured arbitration between
nations53.
53 Jules BARNI, Manuel Républicain, Paris, Librairie Germer Baillière, 1872,p. 116-117; J. BENTHAM, Plan for An Universal and Perpetual Peace, op. cit., p. 26;S. HAZAREESINGH, “Neo-Kantian Moralist and Activist”, op. cit., p. 251-256;F.H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, op. cit., p. 92-94, 97-98, 101-103,117-121.
25
Particularly from the second half of the nineteenth
century onwards, liberal statesmen, jurists and
intellectuals displayed a growing interest in international
problems and in the codification of international law for
settling disputes among nations without recourse to war.
These developments stimulated those (liberal and socialist
thinkers) who argued for the international regulation of
labour matters as a category of international law. There
were also liberal arguments for some kind of system of
collective security, such as those promoted by the Belgian
economist Gustave de Molinari and the Swiss jurist and
political scientist Johann Kaspar Bluntschli54. But their
ideas remained marginal among nineteenth-century liberals.
Class struggle vs capital-labour co-operation
‘Struggle’ characterizes the Marxist socialist and ‘co-
operation’ the liberal view of the relationship between
capital and labour. According to Marxists, capitalist
society had reduced class antagonisms, which existed since
the beginning of history, to the camps of the bourgeoisie
and the proletariat. The capitalist class owned the means of
production (i.e., all the elements in the production
process: raw materials, machines and labour force) and used
the surplus value from the employment of labour power to
54 T. DUNNE, “Liberalism”, op. cit., p. 189; F.H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuitof Peace, op. cit., p. 133-135; S. HOFFMANN, “The crisis of liberalinternationalism”, op. cit. (p. 2 in internet version); I. KANT, PerpetualPeace, op. cit., p. 136; ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities, “InternationalLabour Law”, available online atwww.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/law/lablaw.htm
26
accumulate or expand their capital. Workers, on the other
hand, having no property of their own, were forced to sell
their labour to the capitalist employers in order to
survive. Competition among workers allowed the bourgeoisie
to keep wages at a low level. This relationship between
employers and workers had to be defined as antagonistic
because it could not be resolved within the capitalist
society. The two classes necessarily defended opposing
interests within the existing mode of production: whereas
the bourgeoisie tried to maintain its hegemonic position
through capital accumulation, the proletariat had an
interest in altering the status quo for the betterment of
its working and living conditions55.
The nineteenth- and early twentieth-century socialist labour
organizations defined their objectives within this class
analysis of society. The First and Second Internationals and
the more radical members of international trade-union
organizations such as the IFTU envisaged a dual
confrontation: a short-term struggle for higher wages and
the legal enactment of the eight-hour working day, and a
long-term struggle for the establishment of a new kind of
society. Marxist socialists supported the codification of
(international) labour regulations, but only as an “interim
measure”56 which was no substitute for the final objective55 Rodrigo BORJA, “Lucha de clases”, in R. BORJA, Enciclopedia de la política,op. cit., p. 599; John A. MOSES, Trade Union Theory from Marx to Walesa, NewYork/Oxford/Munich, Berg, 1990, p. 8, 16-17; K. MARX & F. ENGELS, TheManifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit., p. 3-4.56 This, according to K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party,op. cit., p. 18, could not be otherwise, for all laws and institutions ofthe prevailing society were instruments of the ruling class. “Law,morality, religion, are to him [the proletarian] so many bourgeois
27
of creating a communist society, where all forms of wage
labour would be abolished. Their organizations dealt, in
other words, with economic as much as with political
questions, and insisted on the importance of the
international dimension of this struggle57. Indeed, as Lex
Heerma van Voss notes, the internationality of the eight-
hour demand was necessary to prevent employers from using
“the important argument that foreign competition worked
longer hours”58.
Liberals, on the contrary, saw no antagonism in the
capital-labour relationship and did not view modern society
in terms of class. The employer-worker relationship was
defined as both a legal relationship, based on equality, and
a social relationship, which could include inequality.
Classical (laissez-faire) liberals viewed the existence of
economic inequality as an incentive to perfect human
development and as a result of free competition; while
other, more social-minded liberals emphasized the fact that
inequality also arose from unequal bargaining positions due
to deficiencies in the provision of basic necessities (such
prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeoisinterests.” 57 Knud KNUDSEN, “The strike history of the First International”, in F.VAN HOLTHOON & M. VAN DER LINDEN, Internationalism in the Labour Movement, op.cit., p. 309, 320-321; Frederick ENGELS, “Preface to the German editionof 1890”, in K. MARX & F. ENGELS, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, op. cit.,p. 75; H. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, op. cit., p. 292; Markku RUOTSILA,“The Great Charter for the Liberty of the Workingman: Labour, Liberalsand the Creation of the ILO”, in Labour History Review, vol. 67, 2002, nr.1, p. 34.58 Lex Heerma VAN VOSS, “The International Federation of Trade Unionsand the attempt to maintain the eight-hour working day (1919-1929)”, inF. VAN HOLTHOON & M. VAN DER LINDEN, Internationalism in the Labour Movement,op. cit., p. 518-519.
28
as education, medical care, adequate housing and decent
working conditions). Progressive liberal thinkers thus
viewed social ills largely as imperfections of the system.
And an imperfect system, like all situations deriving from
human action, was perfectible59.
Liberals at the turn of the century became increasingly
preoccupied with the ‘social question’ and were committed
(on moral and economic grounds) to finding solutions to it
within the existing industrial society. They reasoned that
the welfare of all individuals in society was a guarantee of
achieving the goals prized by liberal thought: liberty,
equality, brotherhood and progress. Unlike earlier liberal
thinkers, who had wished to avoid too interventionist a
state, they accorded the government a key role in the
provision of basic services and the redistribution of
wealth. Gradual social reform would improve the material and
intellectual condition of underprivileged citizens, and this
in turn would stimulate them to co-operate with the state
and with their employers for the positive development of the
economy and of liberal democracy. The implementation of
social policy might then contribute to the integration of
labour in society. Appropriate social reforms – safeguarded
through legislation and financed by taxation – were, in
other words, viewed as a useful instrument for achieving two
(preventative and/or humanitarian) goals: on the one hand,
the avoidance of (violent) social uprisings and advancement
of radical socialism, and on the other, the betterment of
the working and living conditions of the working population.59 L. BRENTANO, La Question Ouvrière, op. cit., p. 4-5, 115-116, 146-147, 300.
29
Moreover these measures would not be detrimental to
industry: on the contrary, they would benefit and motivate
workers and, in the long run, would be profitable for
employers60.
Co-operation was a central theme in John Hobson’s
liberal theory. Human (material and moral) welfare and peace
would be brought about through capital-labour co-operation
which, according to Hobson, was the creator of surplus
value. This contrasted with the Marxist view of labour as
the only producer of surplus value. “Organized co-
operation”, co-ordinated by the state in order to mitigate
the social ills of industrial society, would maximize this
surplus which would, in turn, make possible the investment
in social services needed for individual development.
Adopting the evolutionary approach of earlier liberal
thinkers, Hobson and his followers thought that the forms of
national and international co-operation would increase,
prefiguring the post-war functional (institutionalist)
approach to international relations61.
60 Ibid, p. 167-171; David LONG, Towards a New Liberal Internationalism. TheInternational Theory of J.A. Hobson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996,p. 29, 47, 132, 135; Guido RUGGIERO, The History of European Liberalism, London,Beacon Press, 1959, p. 267; Marcel VAN DER LINDEN, “The NationalIntegration of European Working Classes (1871-1914): Exploring theCausal Configuration”, in M. VAN DER LINDEN, Transnational Labour History, op.cit., p. 37-38; Guy VANTHEMSCHE, “Les mutualités et la protection socialeen Belgique (milieu du XIXe-fin du XXe siècle)”, Revue européenne d’histoiresociale, vol. 16, 2005, nr. 4, p. 21-22; M. FREEDEN, The New Liberalism, op.cit., p. 4, 14-15, 52-55, 118, 128-130; S.P. DUDINK, Deugdzaam liberalisme,op. cit., p. 10-13, 41-44, 90-92, 257-260, 265-266; J.S. MILL, Utilitarianism,op. cit., p. 15, 21, 23-24, 66-67; M.W. ZACHER & R.A. MATTHEW, “LiberalInternational Theory”, op. cit., p. 111-112.61 D. LONG, Towards a New Liberal Internationalism, op. cit., p. 28-34, 172; M.W.ZACHER & R.A. MATTHEW, “Liberal International Theory”, op. cit., p. 117.
30
The logic applied to the national level was projected
onto the international realm (cf. ‘domestic analogy’):
industrial conciliation was required in every modern nation,
for “national legislation on labour matters could not be
solidly established in individual countries if it was not
supported by parallel standards adopted internationally”62.
In fact, the calls for national and international labour law
appeared almost simultaneously. From the beginning of the
nineteenth century onwards, a number of progressive
intellectuals, civil servants, political and trade-union
leaders and employers tried to promote the idea of
regulating labour matters internationally. Domestic law
would serve as a model for international law. No concrete
efforts were made to develop international labour
regulations, however, until the second half of the
nineteenth century, when first private associations and
later government institutions began to introduce
standards63. Up until the First World War, the arguments
used for the promotion of international labour standards
were primarily of a humanitarian and economic nature. The
great hardship caused by industrial development had led to a
growing awareness of the plight of workers and the acute
need for social reform. Two main economic arguments (linked
to humanitarian concerns) prompted industrialists and
statesmen to call for the implementation of national and
international labour legislation: first was their concern
62 N. VALTICOS, International Labour Law, Deventer, Kluwer, 1979, p. 17.63 Jasmien VAN DAELE, “Engineering Social Peace: Networks, Ideas and theFoundation of the International Labour Organization”, in InternationalReview of Social History, vol. 50, 2005, nr. 3, p. 435-466.
31
about unfair international competition (cheap labour), and
secondly, the deteriorating physical condition of the
working population, which could affect industrial
production64.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century,
international (labour) law won the support of reformist and
revisionist political and trade-union leaders within the
Second International. Their position, however, contrasted
with the more radical voices within the socialist movement.
For Marxist socialists, institutions and laws in all class
societies were primarily instruments of the ruling class.
But they did support the introduction of labour regulation,
because it could be used to improve the immediate material
conditions of the working class, strengthen the working-
class movement and increase the possibility of a more
radical transformation of society. Forms of “bourgeois
legality”, as Lenin put it, had only limited value in
serving the purpose of socialism65.
Socialist revolution vs liberal democracy
64 Ibid, p. 20-21; D. LONG, Towards a New Liberal Internationalism, op. cit., p. 177;Jean-Michel SERVAIS, International Labour Law, The Hague, Kluwer LawInternational, 2005, p. 21. 65 Vladimir LENIN, “The position and tasks of the SocialistInternational”, in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 117; Bill KEACH,“International law: Illusion and reality”, in International Socialist Review,2003, Issue 23, p. 8-9, available online atwww.isreview.org/issues/27/international_law.shtmlFor a Marxist approach to current international relations andinternational law in particular, see: B.S. CHIMNI, Marxism and InternationalLaw: A Contemporary Analysis, New Delhi, Centre for Studies in Diplomacy,International Law and Economics – Jawaharlal Nehru University, n.d., 11p., available online at www.swaraj.org/multiversity/chimni_law.htm
32
As mentioned earlier, the concept of co-operation played a
key role in the general liberal approach to domestic and
international issues. It was the nature and strength of co-
operation, however, that marked the difference between
classical and new liberals, for “cooperation can include an
acceptance of moral norms, adherence to international law,
or collaboration through international organizations”66. The
liberal school of thought is itself an example of the
evolutionary approach applied by liberal thinkers to all
aspects of society: liberal thought evolved from advocacy of
the spread of reason, ethical values, rights and
obligations, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to
calls for free trade, disarmament and national and
international regulation during the eighteenth and
nineteenth, and calls for increased (albeit controlled)
state intervention, and the establishment of international
organizations, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of
the twentieth centuries. These different approaches to co-
operation complemented rather than contradicted each other.
In this sense, liberal thinkers secured continuity in the
liberal tradition, despite the different emphasis laid on
this or that form of collaboration.
The many networks of progressive industrialists,
intellectuals and political and trade-union leaders formed
in Europe and the United States in the second half of the
nineteenth century, for the promotion of international
(labour) law, heralded the further development and
66 M.W. ZACHER & R.A. MATTHEW, “Liberal International Theory”, op. cit., p.117.
33
strengthening of liberal internationalist thought. The
growing tension within and between industrial societies at
the end of the nineteenth century intensified the feeling –
among both private and governmental and diplomatic circles –
that appeals for international law alone were “dangerously
vague”, and that practical forms of international co-
operation were required in order to establish lasting peace.
Some internationalists, in other words, were more and more
inclined to think that neither arbitration nor increased
commercial activity were enough to achieve the desirable
domestic and international (social) peace. Progressive
intellectuals, statesmen and industrialists who envisaged
the establishment of an international organization (whether
in a federal or a confederal form) therefore became more
numerous at the close of the nineteenth and beginning of the
twentieth centuries67.
Of particular importance to the working class were two
international conferences which were held in 1897 on
international labour legislation and the possible creation
of an international labour office: one in Zurich, attended
by socialist and catholic workers’ representatives, and the
other in Brussels, attended by intellectuals, business
representatives and public officials. The latter paved the
way for the establishment of the Basle-based International
Association for Labour Legislation (IALL), in 1900. The
IALL’s main task – the organization of an international
labour agency for the study and publicizing of labour issues
67 Ibid, p. 115; F.H. HINSLEY, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, op. cit., p. 127-128,138-141.
34
– reflected the shift in the liberal tradition from calls
for the establishment of international social policy to
calls for institutionalized forms of international co-
operation. Scientific knowledge as such, and the demands for
the introduction of international labour law as a new
scientific discipline in the academic world, represented a
strong functional tool in the struggle for the
implementation of social reforms. Increased governmental
assistance was also reflected in the functioning of the
IALL: although the association was established as a private
initiative, it received technical and financial support from
various European states68.
The same period (latter part of the nineteenth and beginning
of the twentieth centuries) witnessed the bifurcation of the
Marxist-socialist movement. The Second International
discussed two opposing strategies: a moderate trend,
represented by (reformist and revisionist) political and
trade-union leaders who were increasingly committed to the
gradual legislative reform of the capitalist system and to
co-operation with progressive elements within the national
parliaments and governments, and a radical (Marxist) trend
striving for the revolutionary overthrow of ‘bourgeois
democracy’ and its replacement by socialism69. The rift
between the two trends within the Second International was
reflected in their attitudes towards the introduction of
national labour regulations. Certainly, when the first
68 M. RUOTSILA, “The Great Charter for the Liberty of the Workingman”,op. cit., p. 30; J-M. SERVAIS, International Labour Law, op. cit., p. 23; J. VANDAELE, “Engineering Social Peace”, op. cit., p. 443-444, 446-448.69 L. VOGEL, Marxism and the Oppression of Women, op. cit., p. 106.
35
social laws were passed in the final decades of the
nineteenth century, a general feeling of mistrust prevailed
among workers. As Marcel van der Linden notes, “in all
countries there was a deep-rooted working-class suspicion
against the new form of state intervention”70. And, despite
their interest in the creation of an international labour
office (cf. Zurich conference of 1897), “the great trade-
union organizations, with the exception of the British trade
unions, which sent a delegate from time to time, held aloof
from the Association [IALL]”71. Yet it was in particular the
radical socialists such as Lenin, Trotsky, Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemburg who became increasingly wary of social
laws for better wages, the reduction of the working day/week
and other benefits, viewing them as instruments in the hands
of the capitalists – in Lenin’s words, to “bribe” the
working class72.
The outbreak of the First World War led to the
radicalization of Marxist-socialist and liberal
70 M. VAN DER LINDEN, “The National Integration of European WorkingClasses”, op. cit., p. 38.71 Ernest MAHAIM, “The Historical and Social Importance of InternationalLabor Legislation”, in James T. SHOTWELL, ed., The Origins of the InternationalLabor Organization, New York, Columbia University Press, 1934, p. 8.The Belgian jurist and sociologist Ernest Mahaim was one of thestrongest advocates of international labour law and one of the leadingfigures in the IALL. For a comprehensive analysis of the role played by‘epistemic communities’ (IALL) and political networks (SecondInternational) in the institutionalization of international socialpolicy, see: J. VAN DAELE, “Engineering Social Peace”, op. cit., p. 435-466. 72 R.A. FLETCHER, “Cobden as Educator”, op. cit., p. 572-573; E. HOBSBAWM,“Preface”, op. cit., p. xiv; V. LENIN, “The position and tasks of theSocialist International”, op. cit., p. 116-117, 121; Vladimir LENIN, “Thetasks of the proletariat in our revolution”, in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit.,p. 145-147; Karl LIEBKNECHT, “The International will embrace the wholeof humanity”, in Marxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 287.
36
internationalists. Marxists – foremost among them the
leaders of the Bolshevik Party and the Spartacus League –
were strongly opposed to the “imperialist war”, and called
on workers and soldiers to “turn their guns against their
own governments”. The “war of the nations” needed to be
turned “into civil war”, “for the triumph of socialism”73,
because only revolutionary struggle was capable of bringing
about lasting peace. The Russian revolution of 1917 gave a
much-needed boost to the Marxist-socialist movement, which
had felt intensely disillusioned with the position taken by
most European socialist parties in 1914, when they sided
with their governments and “threw themselves into the mutual
carnage of their peoples”74. On the one hand these events
strengthened the radical-left parties, but on the other they
intensified their disagreement with the more moderate
socialist parties in Western Europe. For Lenin,
collaboration with bourgeois governments and parties was
“social treason”. The social-democratic parties and workers’
organizations, in their turn, became more steadily anti-
revolutionary and more firmly in favour of the
implementation of socio-economic reforms using legal
methods, a position that drove them closer to the new
liberals75.73 V. LENIN, “The position and tasks of the Socialist International”, op.cit., p. 120-122; V. LENIN, “The tasks of the proletariat in ourrevolution”, op. cit., p. 147.See also Ralph Darlington’s and Wayne Thorpe’s contributions to thisissue. 74 P. ANDERSON, “Internationalism: A Breviary”, op. cit. (p. 6 in internetversion). 75 Vladimir LENIN, “Letter to the workers of Europe and America”, inMarxism-Leninism, op. cit., p. 163-165; M. RUOTSILA, “The Great Charter forthe Liberty of the Workingman”, op. cit., p. 36.
37
The war also contributed to the advancement of new
arguments for the establishment of an international set of
rules. The nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century calls for
international law were grounded primarily in political
arguments for the protection of the interests of individual
states in the international realm. International labour law,
on the other hand, was called for on humanitarian and
economic grounds, to protect workers from the degradation of
industrial life, which could endanger labour productivity.
The implementation of universal labour standards was also
meant to protect employers from unfair international
competition. The deteriorating relationships between the
Great Powers prompted the prescription of standards of
conduct in the security sphere, through international law,
which would serve the purpose not only of ending armed
conflicts but also, and more importantly, of preserving
peace. Universal peace, according to Woodrow Wilson, needed
to be organized. A political (preventative) motive was
likewise advanced during the second decade of the twentieth
century by those liberal internationalists who favoured the
formalization of international labour law: the consolidation
of peace. Social and industrial injustice would spark
violent uprisings and jeopardize the plan for universal and
lasting peace. Measures to further social justice – which
was “in its own right, an objective of international labour
law”76 – would strengthen liberal democratic regimes, which,
76 N. VALTICOS, International Labour Law, op. cit., p. 23.Indeed, E. MAHAIM, “The Historical and Social Importance ofInternational Labor Legislation”, op. cit., p. 5, emphasized that“humanitarian ideals are given precedence over considerations of
38
according to Kantian liberals, exercise peaceful restraint
on each other. It goes without saying that this political
argument was of particular importance after the events of
1917 in Russia77.
From this it followed that international organizations were
viewed as a necessity for promoting and guaranteeing the
observance of future standards of conduct, and for the first
time in history concrete plans were made for the
construction of a strong collective security system. Such
international organizations were intended to preserve or
promote liberal values (peace, liberty, the rule of law) and
institutions (constitutional governments, democratic
parliaments, arbitration courts, welfare services) which
were destroyed during the war years, or which had not yet
been implemented78. Following the ‘domestic analogy’,
economic profit”. 77 M.W. DOYLE, Ways of War and Peace, op. cit., p. 253-257; F.H. HINSLEY, Powerand the Pursuit of Peace, op. cit., p. 139; M. RUOTSILA, “The Great Charter forthe Liberty of the Workingman”, op. cit., p. 37, 41-42; W. WILSON, Speech17 Jan. 1917, op. cit., p. 105.78 Steven L. LAMY, “Contemporary mainstream approaches: neo-realism andneo-liberalism”, in S. SMITH & J. BAYLIS, The Globalization of World Politics, op.cit., p. 207, 220-221, treats neo-realism and neo-liberalism as directheirs of the realist and liberal schools of thought. Borrowing fromRobert Cox’s analysis of “world order”, he describes these approaches as“problem-solving theories” (in stark contrast to Marxist “criticaltheory”) or “system maintainer theories” (contrary to those thatchallenge the prevailing order), which therefore “represent status-quoperspectives”. I see some truth in this description when it applies to the post-WWIIneo-liberal approach to world politics. In my view, the earlier liberalvision of international relations cannot, however, be so described.Late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal republicans who foughtin the wars of independence on the European and American continents werecertainly revolutionary, and even dreamed of founding communities thatwent beyond national borders (e.g. Simón Bolívar’s Gran Colombia). Late-nineteenth- and (pre-WWI) twentieth-century liberal internationalistsenvisioned a world order that was indeed not as revolutionary as theMarxist approach but which, seen in the context of the prevailing
39
liberal thinkers and statesmen arrived at the conclusion
that “just as peace had to be enforced in domestic society,
the international domain had to have a system of
regulation”79. Also, a large majority of the organized
workers of the allied and neutral countries insisted on
their right to play a substantive role in the peace talks,
in recognition of their contribution to victory in the war
(both on the battlefield and in industry). This trade-union
attitude contrasted with its pre-WWI wariness vis-à-vis the
IALL: during the war years, most European and North American
trade unions were determined to collaborate actively in the
creation of organizations to regulate international
political, military and labour matters. The rapprochement
during the war years between the liberal and social-
democratic elites, the working class and employers led to
the foundation in 1919 of the League of Nations and the
International Labour Organization80.
societies, did imply a radical transformation of the national andinternational environments, and thus a transformation of the status quo,in order to achieve higher goals. Theirs was, then, a normativeapproach, and certainly more than a problem-solving theory. This is alsothe reason why these thinkers were named ‘Idealists’. 79 T. DUNNE, “Liberalism”, op. cit., p. 191.80 E. MAHAIM, “The Historical and Social Importance of InternationalLabor Legislation”, op. cit., p. 17-18; M. RUOTSILA, “The Great Charter forthe Liberty of the Workingman”, op. cit., p. 33; M.W. ZACHER & R.A.MATTHEW, “Liberal International Theory”, op. cit., p. 115; “ILO History”,available online at www.ilo.org/public/english/about/history.htmIn his analysis of the process leading to the foundation of the ILO,Reiner TOSSTORFF, “The International Trade-Union Movement and theFounding of the International Labour Organization”, in International Reviewof Social History, vol. 50, 2005, nr. 3, p. 400, emphasizes the role playedin it by the international labour movement, and describes the WesternEuropean and North American trade unions gathered in the IFTU as “thereal driving force that pressured governments to include a social-policyprogramme in the peace treaty after the war”.
40
These developments met with strong opposition from the ranks
of radical Marxist socialists who backed the Russian
Revolution and the regime that emerged from this uprising,
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). For Trotsky,
the League of Nations and its various bodies were a mere
“combination of imperialists”, which “deceive the workers
with slogans like ‘collective security’ and ‘disarmament’”.
Even worse, according to Trotsky, was the fact that “the
strangulation of the class struggle” could only be ensured
“with the mediation of the leaders of the mass workers’
organizations”81. For the German revolutionary Karl
Liebknecht, “neither Lloyd George nor Poincaré, neither
Sonnino, nor Wilson, nor Erzberger, nor Scheidemann [had]
the right to conclude peace”82. Revolutionary Marxists were
convinced that no lasting compromise was possible with the
prevailing political and economic elites, and that
international socialist revolution alone would be capable of
achieving peace.
While not attempting to underestimate the role played by the tradeunions in this process, I am (following the findings of Markku Ruotsilaand Jasmien Van Daele, mentioned elsewhere in this text) more inclinedto believe that the ILO would not have come about had it not been forthe co-operation between liberal and social-democratic thinkers andactivists and the support of the political elites of the time. 81 L. TROTSKY, The Revolution Betrayed, op. cit., p. 198, 201. The sharp criticism of the League of Nations and the ILO by Marxistsocialists was not unique: criticism and disappointment were widespread,including among their liberal and social-democratic co-founders. Thedifference lay in the instrumentalist perception of these organizations,as Marxists viewed them, from the start, as tools of the capitalistclass. 82 K. LIEBKNECHT, “The International will embrace the whole ofhumanity”, op. cit., p. 289.
41
Conclusion
Early Marxist-socialist and liberal internationalism had far
more in common than is generally acknowledged. They not only
shared a number of Enlightenment principles, but actually
influenced each other’s development. The two ideologies were
strongly interconnected: Marxist socialism would not have
made its appearance without the development of liberalism,
“which includes capitalism as its economic base”83, and
(social) liberalism would not have distanced itself from its
radical atomistic approach had it not been for the socialist
challenge84.
These ideologies did not emerge in a vacuum: the radical
political and socio-economic transformations in modern
society stimulated the work of those thinkers who attempted
to theorize these changes. The birth of nation-states, the
rise of industry and the internationalization of trade led
to the advancement of internationalist views among thinkers
who would later be differentiated as liberals and Marxist
socialists. Both schools of thought viewed internationalism
as an ideal of the future and as a necessity. They also
started out from the assumption that the national political
and socio-economic environment needed to be altered –
83 Leon P. BARADAT, Political Ideologies. Their Origins and Impact, New Jersey,Pearson, 2006, p. 81.84 Many socialist thinkers and activists were originally members ofliberal organizations, but to regard Marxist socialism as a radical formof liberalism, as some commentators suggest, is, in my view, a boldstatement that calls for a much deeper analysis of the two schools ofthought than we can provide in this paper.
42
moderately and gradually for liberals, radically for
Marxists socialists – in order to achieve a greater goal.
The main point of divergence between Marxists and liberals
was the role they assigned to the working class and the
working-class movement, at both national and international
level. For Marxist socialists, the capital-labour
relationship was antagonistic. They strove for an
egalitarian (i.e. classless) community which would come into
being after the abolition of private property and wage
labour. This revolution would be brought about by means of
the national and international struggle of organized
workers. Thus, to complete a quotation from Marx used in the
first section of this article: “The head of this
emancipation is philosophy, its heart the proletariat”85.
Liberalism, on the other hand, was a vision of future
harmony. After the period of unrestricted competition and
minimal state intervention (laissez-faire liberalism),
progressive liberal thinkers and statesmen insisted on the
introduction of political and social reforms “to make
citizens out of workers”86. Employers and workers would then
see each other not as rivals, but rather as partners in the
market economy and as members of society having equal rights
and obligations. For liberals, it was a matter not of
creating equality but of creating equal opportunities for
all individuals. Liberalism contemplated a society that
rewarded its citizens according to their work, not according
to their needs (Marxist socialism also aimed at the creation85 K. MARX, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, op. cit. (p. 11 in internetversion).86 S.P. DUDINK, Deugdzaam liberalisme, op. cit., p. 30.
43
of a classless meritocracy, but its final goal was the
establishment of a communist society which would reward each
of its members according to their needs). At the
international level this meant “equality of opportunity for
commerce, for investment of capital, and for participation
in the development of the world’s resources”87 which would
guarantee progress and peace among nations. National
governments, international organizations, workers and
employers would have to collaborate actively in order to
safeguard the rights and interests of citizens and
individual states.
Mutual influence between Marxist socialists and
liberals was particularly strong in the latter part of the
nineteenth century. Liberals adopted certain views and
methods which were also favoured by Marxists – for example,
attention to the ‘social problem’, the use of scientific
research for analysing society, and the establishment of
international organizations. By the same token, Marxist
socialists supported political and social reforms that had
originally been promoted by progressive liberal thinkers
(mainly economists) and politicians, such as, for instance,
the introduction of national and international labour
legislation for the amelioration of working and living
conditions. But their goals were diametrically opposed:
revolutionary for Marxists and reformist for liberals. This
development contributed to the rift between radical and
moderate members within the socialist movement, and to the87 John A. HOBSON, The Morals of Economic Internationalism, New York, Houghton,1920, p. 67, quoted in D. LONG, Towards a New Liberal Internationalism, op. cit.,p. 135.
44
advancement of revisionism. In addition, it contributed to
the rapprochement between progressive liberals and moderate
socialists, as the former sought co-operation with moderate
members of the labour movement, and the latter with
progressive members of the bourgeoisie.
This development also sheds some light on the
internationalist position of late-nineteenth- and twentieth-
century social-democratic leaders. As mentioned in the first
section above, I do not support the argument that makes too
great a distinction between national and international
ideology88. Indeed, both Marxist socialists and liberals
took the national environment as a starting point for their
analysis of society. However, neither Marxist socialists nor
liberals sought to diminish the importance of either level.
On the contrary, for both Marxists and liberals the national
level was the immediate arena of struggle for progress, with
internationalism as the next logical step after the
consolidation of nation-states. As at the end of the Ancien
Régime, during the twentieth century national and
international sentiments complemented one other89. This88 A similar argument is expounded in Kevin CALLAHAN, “‘PerformingInter-Nationalism’ in Stuttgart in 1907: French and German SocialistNationalism and the Political Culture of an International SocialistCongress”, in International Review of Social History, vol. 45, 2000, nr. 1, p. 51-87.And M. BILLIG, Banal nationalism, op. cit., p. 61, shares this opinion:“‘Internationalism’ is not the polar opposite of ‘nationalism’, as if itconstitutes a rival ideological consciousness... An outward-lookingelement of internationalism is part of nationalism and has accompaniedthe rise of nationalism historically”. 89 This statement nuances Perry Anderson’s view, according to which“national and international impulses coexisted without strain” untilmore or less the mid-1800s. After that, the dichotomy betweencapital/national and labour/international ideology grew stronger, andcapsized after 1945: “Nationalism becomes predominantly a popular cause,
45
situation was reflected in the commitment to promote
international institutions, trade and co-operation. The
participation of social democrats such as Emile Vandervelde
in the Belgian government and the Second International was
then perhaps not necessarily proof of “the growing
contradiction between national and international
loyalties”90, but rather a sign of the increased interaction
between liberal and social-democratic ideologies, both of
which view the national and the international levels as “two
sides of the same coin”91.
of exploited and destitute masses […] Internationalism, at the samestroke, starts to change camps – assuming new forms in the ranks ofcapital”. P. ANDERSON, “Internationalism: A Breviary”, op. cit. (p. 7-8 ininternet version).90 J. VAN DAELE, “Engineering Social Peace”, op. cit., p. 441. For an analysis of the national identity of the Belgian Workers’ Partyprior to the First World War, and of its changing attitude to radicalinternationalism, see: Maarten VAN GINDERACHTER, Het rode vaderland. Devergeten geschiedenis van de communautaire spanningen in het Belgische socialisme voor WOI,Tielt, Lannoo, 2005, 494 p. 91 Lester PEARSON, Mike, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, vol. 2,1973, p. 32, quoted in Erika SIMPSON, “The Principles of LiberalInternationalism According to Lester Pearson”, Journal of Canadian Studies,vol. 34, 1999, nr. 1, p. 81.
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