The Ongoing Topicality of Internationalism

The aim of this introductory text is to provide a theoretical framework for the history of internationalism, to account for the plurality of political perspectives, social compositions, forms of organization, and repertoires of action that have characterized it. Beyond the history of the various internationals of the workers’ movement and that of the so-called non-aligned countries, it is indeed necessary to consider the political productivity and circulation from below of struggles, subjectivities, practices, and watchwords that are not traceable to the official representatives of the revolutionary movements (parties, trade unions, governments), which nevertheless have written important pages of resistance to capitalism and imperialism. This approach seems not only of fundamental importance for reading against the grain of the history of the last two and a half centuries, but also for analyzing contemporary movements and struggles.