RE: Local/International Organization

["Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This struggle over national autonomy was at the heart of international
organizations from their inception.  The "First International" wasn't
really the first, but had clearly non-Marxist predecessors in radical
organizations of the 1850s (and even earlier) interested in mutually
supporting each others various national struggles.  This was especially
so in terms of eastern and southern European groups, which also tended
to see themselves as fighting an ongoing civil war that justified
individual acts of terror.  From this perspective, the First
International rejected as inadequate the idea of nationalism--even the
nationalism of the oppressed nations--in favor of "international," class
struggle, and mass action.

What killed the First Internationalism was not the much-touted
ideological factionalism between followers of Marx and Bakunin.  That
conflict largely extended the older dispute over how much importance
should be placed on national struggles, what sort of tactics should be
pursued, and the centrality of class or nation.   In the end, a lot of
us would agree that national rivalries killed the First
International...so saying that you're not going to motivated by
nationalism wasn't sufficient.

To some extent, later movements remained similarly bounded by such
concerns.  The Second and the Third International offered
interpretations of socialism that mirrored those of the older conflicted
constituencies.

As to the Fourth International, we're discussing an interplay of ideas
unbounded by the pull of comparable kinds of mass constituencies.  In
defense of its founders, they never intended it for such a course.  They
expected that the emerging conflict of World War Two would discredit the
Third International as thoroughly as they believed World War One had
discredited the Second International.  Not only did history show this to
be mechanistic, but it raises question about both the extent to which
the Second/Socialist International had actually been discredited, the
justifications for a Third/Communist International, and the value of
imposing a single form of organization on the struggle everywhere in the
world.

Solidarity!
Mark L.




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