Anarchist St. Imier International

The Anarchist St. Imier International was an international anarchist organization formed in 1872 when the Bakuninist anarchist sections were expelled from the First International after the Hague Congress (1872).

The St. Imier International was created when the Swiss Jura federation, the most important anarchist section of the old International, sent out a call to other expelled sections who then assembled at St. Imier to create a new anarchist, organization. The organization was made up of several groups, mainly the Italian, Spanish, Belgian, American, French and Swiss sections. Unlike the First International, which gave primacy to working-class internationalism, the Anarchist St. Imier International was based on autonomous national sections free to act as they chose without international co-ordination.

At the St. Imier Congress (1872) the delegates proclaimed "[t]hat the aspirations of the proletariat can have no other aim than the creation of an absolutely free economic organisation and federation based upon work and equality and wholly independent of any political government, and that such an organisation or federation can only come into being through the spontaneous action of the proletariat itself, through its trade societies, and through self-governing communes."

The St. Imier International lasted until 1877. In July 1881, anarchists would launch the Black International.


References and further reading



Related topics in the Connexions Subject Index

Anarchism  –  First International  –  Left History



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