On September 28, 1864, the International Working Men’s Association, better known as the First International, was founded at a meeting in St. Martin’s Hall, London. One of the leaders of the International was Karl Marx, who drew up the General Rules of the International shortly after its foundation. These included the statement: “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves, [and] the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule ... This Association is established to afford a central medium of communication and co-operation between working men’s societies existing in different countries and aiming at the same end; viz., the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes.”

From Green Left Weekly, September 28, 2005.
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