Internationalism without an International? Cross-Channel Anarchist Networks, 1880-1914

The years between 1880 and 1914 saw the emergence of anarchism as an organised political movement in Western Europe and the United States. From its very inception, anarchism was regarded as essentially internationalist, and yet, retrospectively, the temptation to disregard or downplay the international dimension of the late nineteenth century anarchist movement is understandably great. First, the fact that anarchism was usually the product of very specific national and even local contexts, and that most of the militants themselves tended to focus primarily on the national struggle, has led historians to study these movements within these contexts, often regarding their international dimension as a dead letter(I). There is also the fact that anarchism was sometimes connected with nationalism and xenophobia, usually fighting them of course, but sometimes embracing them. For instance, Anglophobia, anti-German feelings and anti-Semitism were rife among the French compagnons(2) well into the 1 890s, often affecting prominent militants, who were notoriously late to rally the Dreyfusard camp or even shifted to outright xenophobia. Lastly, views of international anarchism, like those of the Second International and the International Federation of Trade Unions(3) have inevitably been tainted by the collapse of militant unity at the outbreak of the First World War, as European anarchists split into two rival groups according to whether they advocated joining the war or sticking to antimilitarist and antipatriotic propaganda.

However, part of this negative interpretation of anarchist internationalism can be traced to the fact that anarchist internationalism is usually defined as the setting up of international agencies - the Anarchist International, the Black International^ - in order to achieve the goals set by anarchist militants(5).