ABSTRACT
The ten years after the failure of Chartism were a period of calm. Both the Address and the Rules are written in the spirit of Chartism, in the traditions of which the founders of the International Working Men’s Association had grown up. Internationalism was no less potent a factor in the economic sphere of the Labour movement. Among the representatives who accepted the invitation and attended the meeting was Karl Marx, whose knowledge of working class economics and whose literary abilities predestined him for the intellectual leadership of the new organisation. The teachings of Marx divide into three parts: Sociological law of history, or the materialist conception of history; class warfare and its meaning; evolution of capitalism. Marx adheres to this formula and regards the Hegelian dialectics as a true statement of the formal process of evolution, but in the place of the Idea he puts the economic forces as the predominant dynamic agency of human society and its history.
