The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Workingmen’s Association

A work by Marx and Engels criticizing Bakuninism. Completed by Marx and Engels with the participation of Lafargue between April and July 1873. It was translated into a single edition in French and published in London and Hamburg in August of the same year.

In September 1872, in order to eliminate the negative influences of Bakunin’s anarchism on the workers’ movement, The Hague Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association expelled Bakunin and Guillaume, the leaders of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy, but did not have time to make a thorough exposure of the organization’s activities. In order to continue the struggle against Bakuninism and to complete the thorough liquidation of Bakuninism, Marx Engels, with the participation of Lafargue, wrote this work on the basis of the detailed material collected by the committee for the review of the activities of the alliance in various places. The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Workingmen’s Association is composed of 11 parts. Marx and Engels revealed the essence of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy. They pointed out that the International Workingmen’ Association was an organization that united the proletarians of all countries, while the Alliance of Socialist Democracy was a secret anarchist organization within the “International” whose aim was to oppose the “International” itself, thus the Alliance of Socialist Democracy was essentially a prop created by Bakunin who took it into his head to play the part of the proletariat’s emancipator. Based on the materials provided by the commission of The Hague Congress elected to investigate the activities of the secret Alliance from Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France and other places, Marx and Engels have exposed the disorganising activities of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy in these countries and its acts of treachery against the International Workingmen’ Association, and also exposed the separatist activities of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy in various European countries. Marx and Engels have also particularly exposed the adventurous activities of the Russian Bakuninists and the harm they did to the Russian Revolution, unmasked their true face, and completely crushed the ambitions of the Bakuninists to dominate the European workers’ movement.

The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Workingmen’s Association has unmasked, with its informative materials, the intrigues and fraudulent schemes used by the Bakuninists in order to manipulate the “International” as a whole and use their influence and organization to achieve their ends, and summarized the experience of fighting against Bakuninists theoretically and organizationally, which played an important role in the critique of Bakuninism and the ultimate liquidation of its negative influence.