Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.11, 2015

The Communist Activities of the First International and the Logic of Its Socialist Party Politics

(Abstract)

Wang Shaoxing

Against the backdrop of the 19th century, the First International took Marxism as its guide and the early Socialist International League as its vehicle. Viewing the seizure of power as the great mission of the working class, it was active in struggling against the rule of the bourgeoisie, energetically responding to the call of times in terms of both theoretical consciousness and organized proletarian struggle. It had a great historical influence upon the international Communist movement and the growth of nationalism from the 20th century on. Taking the initiative in socialist party politics, the First International followed in the steps of the Communist League. Through the interaction and development of a new organizational form, a new theoretical stance and new political practice, it changed the political situation under which all political power was monopolized by the bourgeois political parties, and thus left a rich historical legacy of ideological creation and practical innovation for the rise and development of the subsequent Second International, the Communist International, and socialist party politics within oppressed nation-states. The First International’s practice of socialist party politics was obviously “local,” “preliminary” in terms of its stages of development, and “experimental” in terms of practice, but it laid the cornerstone and pioneered the values for the major development of socialist party politics in fields ranging from organizational vehicle, value orientation and content of activities to ideological direction, mode of practice and strategies and principles.