The Internationals
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Last updated: 2026-08-26
This article is part of the Intermediate course on Libertarianism and the Austrian School of Economics -> Marxism
The "Internationals" were political organizations that, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sought to bring together workers’ movements, trade unions, and left-wing parties from around the world in order to coordinate the struggle against the capitalist system and promote socialism or communism at a global level.
1. The First International (International Workingmen's Association - IWA, 1864-1876)
Founded in London, it represented the first formal attempt to unite the working class of different countries.
It housed a great diversity of ideological currents: Marxists, anarchists, syndicalists, and republicans.
Its dissolution was caused by irreconcilable internal disputes, mainly the direct clash between Karl Marx (who defended the need to conquer the apparatus of the State in order to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat) and the anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin (who advocated the immediate and total abolition of the State).
2. The Second International (1889-1916)
It grouped in a more structured way the massive socialist, labour, and social-democratic parties, mainly in Europe.
During this stage historic demands such as the eight-hour day and the commemoration of May 1st were established.
It was strongly marked by the debate between the "reformists" (such as Eduard Bernstein, who held that socialism could be reached gradually through democratic and parliamentary reforms) and the "revolutionaries" (such as Vladimir Lenin or Rosa Luxemburg).
The organization collapsed with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914: instead of maintaining the global strike and anti-war internationalism, the immense majority of the European socialist parties supported their own governments and voted in favor of financing the national war.
3. The Third International (Comintern or Communist International, 1919-1943)
It was founded in Moscow by Lenin after the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Unlike the previous Internationals (which were broader forums of debate), the Third International was an extremely rigid, centralized, and vertical organization.
Its objective was to group exclusively the communist parties of the world, breaking definitively with moderate social democracy, in order to export the global revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Over time, it became a tool of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin, who finally dissolved it in 1943 to send a message of appeasement to his Western allies (the U.S. and Great Britain) during the Second World War.
4. The Fourth International (1938)
It was promoted by Leon Trotsky in Paris, after his exile and rupture with the Soviet leadership.
It was born in direct opposition to Stalinism and to the Third International, accusing the USSR of having become bureaucratically corrupted and of having betrayed the international workers’ revolution in favor of the conservative policy of "socialism in one country."
Perspective from the Austrian School and Classical Libertarianism
From the standpoint of methodological individualism and Praxeology (human action), the evolution of these Internationals confirms several critiques of liberal economists and intellectuals:
The fallacy of class collectivism:
The collapse of the Second International in the face of the First World War demonstrated empirically that the idea of a homogeneous "world proletarian class" is a lie.
The Austrian School of Economics points out that individuals act on the basis of subjective scales of value, identities, cultural ties, and varied preferences that cannot be reduced solely to their position within the productive process.
Centralization, hierarchy, and tyranny:
The transition from the open debate of the First International to the absolute verticality of the Third International illustrates the liberal warning about Central planning.
Every attempt to organize society coercively (even at the level of supranational political movements) results in the concentration of power in a small leading clique, stifling dissent.
The danger of constructivist rationalism:
Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) warned against the arrogance of claiming to design and direct the destiny of the whole of humanity from the top down.
The Internationals’ attempt to plan a world revolution ignores the complexity of Spontaneous Orders and evolutionary institutions, attempting to replace the peaceful voluntary cooperation of the free market with a unified global imposition.
This article is part of the Intermediate course on Libertarianism and the Austrian School of Economics -> Marxism
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Last updated: 2026-08-26
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