MIA > Archive > Wilhelm Liebknecht
Written: As a speech in German, delivered on the second day of the fouding congress of the Second International, July 15th, 1889.
Published in English: July 2021.
Translated: By Graham Seaman for the Marxists Internet Archive.
Source: Graham Seaman's excellent first-time translation of the congress proceedings.
HTML Markup: By Graham Seaman. Excerpted for the Wilhelm Liebknecht archive by Bill Wright, January 2023.
Citizen Liebknecht declares that he has already participated in many national and international congresses, but that none of them can be compared to the present one:
Not the national ones, if only because they were only national ones. But the earlier congresses of the International Workingmen’s Association could not offer anything similar either. The International Workingmen’s Association was only a great blueprint for the future: the plan of a general workers’ fraternity and workers’ organization — but a plan which, as a result of the youth of the movement, has not yet been fully implemented in most countries. Just as in battles and sieges of antiquity the champions hurled their spear far out into the enemy ranks, over the wall of the best of the enemy, in order to urge the masses to rush after the missile, so the International Workingmen’s Association hurled the spear of the international struggle for liberation far ahead into the middle of the armies, into the middle of the fortress of capitalism — and the proletariat has rushed after to retrieve the spear and break up the armies of the enemy and storm their fortress. The International Workingmen’s Association, however, after showing the workers of all countries the common goal and teaching them the necessity of common action and struggle, had fulfilled its mission. It is not dead — it has passed over into the powerful workers’ organizations and workers’ movements in the individual countries, and lives on in these. It lives on in us. This congress is the work of the International Workingmen’s Association.
The international labour movement has become too large to be part of a single, unified organization. But the seeds of the International Workingmen’s Association have sprouted so well in the hearts of the workers that the idea of internationalism dominates every workers’ organization and movement of the present day. The International Workingmen’s Association, as far as it is still possible today, does not need to be re-established — it exists — exists to a far greater extent than the founders dared to hope — it embraces the entire class-conscious and purposeful proletariat of the whole world — a giant army in which the organized workers of the individual countries form the individual army corps; — but all army corps in one single army!
To implement the program of the International Workingmen’s Association in all its parts, to continually improve the national organizations, to tie the bond of internationalism ever tighter — that is our duty — the duty of all the emissaries of the proletariat who have come together in this great international workingmen’s parliament.
The English Chartists already had a “workers’ parliament.” However large the Chartist movement was, that workers’ parliament only included the delegates of English workers. The earlier international congresses cannot be compared with this Congress either, because most countries were only very imperfectly represented, and in some cases not represented at all, so those congresses could not be regarded as a true expression of the international workers’ movement. In this Congress of ours, however, the entire workers’ movement of the world is represented, if not yet completely, to such an extent that we can say without arrogance: this is a global workingmen’s parliament — the first that the world has ever seen.
The workers of all countries have turned their eyes confidently on us. And that trust will not be misplaced — so announces the enthusiasm that shines in all our eyes.
[*] This is an editorial title that I have chosen for publication on the Wilhelm Liebknecht archive. I do not believe that the speech was ever given an “official” title for publication separate from the congress proceedings.
Last updated on 7 January 2023