ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to apply the structural approach to nineteenth-century working-class internationalism in general and to the First International (International Working Men’s Association) in particular. The history of the nineteenth-century international labour movement is divided into three phases: a pre-national phase, until the end of the 1860s; a transitional phase, from the end of the 1860s until about 1900; and the national phase, from the turn of the century onwards. In the pre-national phase, the geography of workers’ internationalism was determined by the long-term trends in two ways. First, during this period, internationalism always had its political and organizational backbone in Britain, particularly in London, where the ‘Fraternal democrats’, the ‘International Association’ and, of course, the First International were founded. Second, during this period the concept of internationalism, as Koralka observes, was ‘rooted exclusively in the historical context of the West European countries, all of which at this time were national states, or, at least, integrated national societies’.
