Although the Chartist movement disappeared in the 1850s, many of its leaders and activists joined new movements associated with the cause of the working class. For instance, Ernest Jones and Julian Harney entered into close collaboration with Marx, who had come to live in exile in London after the defeat of the 1848 Revolution. Ernest Jones became an open advocate of the class war and came very close to the ideas of scientific socialism. At a special Chartist Convention in 1852 he secured an overt policy of independent working-class struggle and sought to reorganise the National Chartist Association on the lines of a Marxist workers’ party. In this endeavour, he was anxious to rally the trade unions, but unfortunately his “Labour Parliament”, called during the period of union solidarity after the great Preston strike of 1853, was spurned by the conservative union leaders and the initiative fell on stony ground.
Marx and Engels had followed the development of the Chartist movement with keen interest. Engels was in fact a regular contributor to the Chartist paper Northern Star. Under their influence, Julian Harney had launched a new left-wing paper, the Red Republican, which published the first English edition of the Communist Manifesto in 1850. Again, both Jones and Harney played a leading role in establishing the Fraternal Democrats, an international association that promoted the ideas of working class internationalism. These progressive trends were later to merge into the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA), founded by Marx and Engels in September 1864. This organisation, which became known later as the First International, drew into its ranks the leaders of the British trade unions, such as the moderate general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, Robert Applegarth. Despite the narrow outlook of these trade union leaders, Marx regarded this development with the utmost importance. The task of the International was to establish fraternal relations between working class organisations in different countries, and sought to co-ordinate their activities as widely as possible. On the basis of experience, Marx and Engels believed the labour movement would ultimately move in the direction of, and embrace, scientific socialism.
Trade unions, “without being aware of it”, stated Marx, “became the focal points for the organisation of the working class, just as the medieval municipalities and communities became such for the bourgeoisie.” But for Marx they were much more than this. They were not simply “focal points” for workers’ struggles, important as this was, but – drawing parallels with the struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism – potentially an “organised means to promote the abolition of the very system of wage labour.”
Marx, who had been dogged by illness, studiously avoided time-wasting, and was deeply engrossed in writing Capital, nevertheless threw himself into the work of the First International with relish. “Although for years I have systematically refused to take part in any ‘organisations’ I have accepted this time because here there is a possibility of doing some real good”, wrote Marx. “There is now evidently a revival of the working classes taking place.” As de facto leader of the International, Marx was given the responsibility of drafting its founding Rules and Address. In this, he showed enormous skill in knitting together the divergent opinions of British trade unionists, French Proudhonists, German Lassalleans, supporters of Bakunin and other trends. The International, wrote Engels in the preface to the Communist Manifesto German edition of 1890, “was bound to have a programme which would not shut the door on the English trades unions, the French, Belgian, Italian and Spanish Proudhonists and German Lassalleans.” Before the movement could run, it had to learn to walk. It was the first time in more than twenty years that an overtly political organisation had established such close working relations with the trade unions.
“Had we from 1864 to 1873 insisted on working together only with those who openly adopted our platform,” Engels explained in a letter of 27 January 1887, “where should we be today?” Again Marx wrote about the need to avoid sectarianism and to connect with the real movement of the working class:
It is very difficult to present the matter in such a way that our view might appear in a form acceptable to the present position taken by the labour movement… Time must elapse before the re-awakened movement will permit of the former boldness of language.
For them, in an attempt not to crudely put off their new collaborators at this key moment, it was a matter of presenting their ideas “mild in manner and bold in content.” They understood that the work of the First International represented an historic step forward in the evolution of the movement. One real step forward for the workers’ movement was worth a thousand correct programmes, noted Marx. On the basis of experience, the conscious sections of the working class would inevitably move in the direction of scientific socialism. For the moment, in this early stage in its development, the task was of consistent and patient work, and taking things one step at a time.