Q. What was the Second International?

A.

The work of Marx and Engels with the First International bore fruit in mass organisations of the proletariat in Germany, France, Italy and other countries as Marx had foreseen. This in its turn prepared the way for the organisation of the International on the principles of Marxism, which embraced greater masses. Thus in 1889, the Second International was born. But the development of the Second International largely took place within the framework of an organic upswing in capitalism, and while in words espousing the ideas of Marxism, the top layers of world social democracy came under the pressure of capitalism. The leaders of the Social Democratic Parties and the Trade Union mass organisations of the working class, became infected with the habits and style of living of the ruling class. The habit of compromise and discussion with the ruling class became second nature. The negotiation of differences through compromise moulded their habits of thought. They believed that the steady increase in the standard of living, due to the pressure of the mass organisations, would continue indefinitely. The leaders raised themselves a step higher above the masses in their conditions of existence. This affected the top layers of the Parliamentarians and the Trade Unions. 'Conditions determine consciousness' and the decades of peaceful development which followed the Commune of 1870, changed the character of the leadership of the mass organisations. Supporting Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat in words, and espousing Internationalism in phrases, in practice the leadership had gone over to the support of the national state. At the Basle Conference of 1912, with growing contradictions of world imperialism and the inevitability of world war, the Second International resolved to oppose by all means, including general strike and civil war, the attempt to throw the peoples into senseless slaughter. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, together with Luxembourg, Trotsky and other leaders of the movement, participated in the organisation of the Second International as the means for the liberation of mankind from the shackles of capitalism.

In 1914, the leaders of Social Democracy in nearly all countries rallied to the support of their own ruling class in the First World War. So unexpected was the crisis and the betrayer of the principles of Socialism, that even Lenin believed that the issue of Vorwaerts, the central organ of the German Social Democracy, containing the support for the war credits was a forgery of the German General Staff. The International had ingloriously collapsed at its first serious test.

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