ABSTRACT
The Socialist International, of which the Labour Party is a founding member, dates its origins to 1864 when Karl Marx established the Inter national Working M en’s Association (the First International). The First International was dissolved in 1876 following protracted arguments between Marxists and Anarchists. With the growth of socialist parties in Europe seeking power through parliamentary action (although retaining a generally nominal commitment to Marxism), a Second International was formed in Paris in 1889. The Second International acted primarily as a forum for the exchange of information between m em ber parties. At the Second International’s conference in 1907, delegates (including representatives from the Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party) passed a resolution on Militarism and International Conflicts pledg ing that they would work to prevent the outbreak of war ‘by whatever means seem to them most effective’. The outbreak of war in 1914, and the support given by the majority of socialist parties to their governments, effectively ended the Second International.
