270 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 271 Marx and the International By HERMANN SCHLUETER fully expressed the needs of the times, because an international union of labor had to arise to take up arms against the internationalism of capital. Therefore it re echoed, from North to South, from East to West, like a trumpet blast waking the exploited and the miserable from their drugged sleep of slavery.
Marx is still young. With the freshness and determination of youth his thoughts and his spiritual weapons are fighting the battles of the proletariat. He has found the alchemy that will heal human misery. He has taught us how to destroy the slavery that lies at the root of all slavery. Before his achievements in the field of socialist science, the works of all his predecessors vanish. Before his bold, almost adventurous undertaking, to achieve the fraternity of the most neglected, most derided of all classes, to destroy classes themselves, the boldest plans of history pale into insignificance. Never was there a character of greater purity. In him words, deeds, thoughts and actions were one harmonious whole. Ideal in his family relations, as a man and as a citizen, Marx may well be for us an eternal monument of spiritual greatness and human power.
His name will live forever in the Pantheon of humanity in the noblest temple of fame whose gates are closed to the great men of the earth, in the hearts of the poor and the miserable, in the hearts of the working class.
The International Workingmen Association that was called into being in September 1864 in London, was not the creation of a single man. And yet a single man, Karl Marx, gave this organization its form and its content, defined its aim: the union of the workers of the world for the emancipation of the proletariat.
The thought that became the keystone of the International Workingmen Association was not new, even in 1864. The idea of international unity of mankind, in fact, did not originate in the labor movement, even if it did find its most decided expression there. During the great French Revolution the ideal of universal brotherhood was born; of a world nepublic that would tear down all national boundaries, that would give peace to the world.
At that time the radical bourgeoisie of England, too, declared itself in sympathy with these international ideas. In November 1792 they sent a message to the French revolutionary parliament which said, in part: Triple Alliance not of crowns, but of the people of America, France and Britain will bring Liberty to Europe and peace to the world.
In another message these British reformers protested against the thought of a heritage of hate between England and France, while looking forward to the movement when an indissoluble bond may unite both nations, the forerunner of peace and unity all over the earth.
French as well as English philosophical political literature of that time contains numerous references to the international unity of mankind, which naturally found its most intense expression in the democratically inclined portions of the population. The July Revolution in Paris was greeted with undivided rejoicing by the working class of England, so far as it had entered public