Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association
Address and Provisional Rules of the Working Men’s International Association
Marx’s founding address of the First International, written in English in October 1864: the misery of the workers amid the boom of 1848–64, the Ten Hours’ Bill and the co-operative movement as victories of “the political economy of labour,” the need for political power and international solidarity. With the Provisional Rules, which open: “the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.”
- Edition
- Written in English; the London pamphlet of November 1864, from the facsimile reprint of 1924, with the Provisional Rules
- Source
- Wikisource
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Contents
- Inaugural Address 23 min 23
Marx’s founding address of the International, written in English in October 1864 for a coalition of English trade unionists, French Proudhonists, Mazzinians and German communists. From parliamentary reports he shows that working-class misery did not diminish in the great boom of 1848–64: Dr. Smith’s starvation diets, the degenerated potters, the concentration of income and land, while Gladstone hails an “intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power” confined to the propertied (a quotation later disputed). After the defeats of 1848 he finds two victories for “the political economy of labour”: the Ten Hours’ Act and the co-operative factories, which show that production needs no masters. But co-operation cannot grow without national means, so “to conquer political power has become the great duty of the working classes,” and they must act together across borders and watch their governments’ foreign policy, as English workers did against intervention for the slaveholding South. It ends with the Manifesto’s call: Proletarians of all countries, unite!
- Provisional Rules of the Association 11 min 11
The preamble and ten rules of the International, also drafted by Marx. The preamble states that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves, that economic subjection underlies all servitude, that political movements are a means to economic emancipation (a clause later fought over), and that emancipation is an international problem. It adds, as a concession to Mazzini’s followers, an appeal to truth, justice and morality “without regard to colour, creed or nationality.” The rules set up a Central Council in London, a congress planned for 1865, and national federations of workers’ societies. A note on membership and the list of the Central Council (which shows this is a printing later than November 1864) close the pamphlet.