<<This is an excerpt of the entire article - which can be found at the address below - because the entire article was too large for posting to this list... alister>> ----- Original Message ----- Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 09:34:40 -0400 From: Eric Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.labourstart.org/elgersburg.shtml LabourStart April 1999 From Internet to "International" The Role of the Global Computer Communications Network in the Revival of Working Class Internationalism by Eric Lee This paper was presented at the "Marxism on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century" Conference, 18-21 March 1999, Elgersburg, Germany "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with each other." --Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party It is my belief that the Internet is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the revival of labour internationalism in the twenty-first century and with it, the revival of socialism. The global computer communications network we call the "internet" is necessary because one cannot imagine a workers International coming into existence today in any other form than online. I will expand upon this idea in a moment. But not sufficient -- because it will take more than a global computer network to re-create the labour International. It will take the will of class conscious individuals and movements who approach the question with open eyes. Let me begin with a simple definition of "International". To Marx, the International was a world-wide organization of working people which aimed to coordinate their activities across borders and thereby strengthen them in the struggle with capital. The First International was no more -- and no less -- than that. Others may disagree, and the Leninist tradition certainly doesn't accept this definition of "International", but it is how Marx himself saw the concept and implemented it in practice. Internationalism is central to Marxist thought; it was with an internationalist message that Marx and Engels chose to close the Communist Manifesto. Marx devoted considerable effort to the creation of a workers' International which was unique in the series of "Internationals" which followed in that it was a very broad-based union of workers without a strong ideological slant. It engaged in practical affairs related to the day-to-day needs of trade unions, and one of its main roles was to collect and distribute information. We cannot romanticize too much about Marx's International. Lacking funds and decent means of communications, it was not particularly effective. In reading through the minutes of its General Council meetings, one can sense the frustration at not being able to act in many cases. Information reaching the International in London was often sketchy and out of date. The Internationals which followed could not play the same role. The Second, still around today and still based in London, was and remains a global federation of social democratic parties. Particularly today, when trade unions and social democratic parties are often not nearly as close as they once were, and when social democratic governments are no guarantee of pro-labour policies, the Socialist International can hardly be considered the true inheritor of Marx's First International. Regarding the Third International, let me only say that nothing did more to undermine and discredit the cause of international socialism than the Stalinist regime in the USSR and the countries in its orbit. The Third International seemed more inspired by the 19th century tsarist diplomatic corps with its many intrigues -- described in some detail by Marx himself in his little-known writings on tsarist diplomacy -- than by Marx's vision of working men and women uniting. In other words, there has never really been a true workers' International. That is why what we must be thinking about is not a Fourth or Fifth International, but a First. With the fall of the Berlin Wall a decade ago, the world described by Marx in which there would only be one social system for the developed countries and that one based upon a free market -- finally became reality. Call it globalization, call it a unipolar world, but the world described in "Capital" has finally become real. This is, of course, an oversimplification, and not the central theme of this paper. Nevertheless, the reason why the beginning of the 21st century seems such an appropriate time for the labour movement to make another attempt at the elusive dream of a workers' International is because of capitalism's global triumph. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
