On Global Solidarity

Against the Current, No. 216, January-February 2022

Karl Marx

KARL MARX CONCLUDES the 1864 Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International) by saying:

“If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure?

“[The actions of the ruling classes] have taught the working classes the duty to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws of morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.

“The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes.”

January-February 2022, ATC 216

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