The International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP; also known as the 2½ International or the Vienna International; , IASP) was a political international for the co-operation of

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

parties.

History

The IWUSP was founded on 27 February 1921 at a conference in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, by ten parties, including the

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of t ...

(USPD), the

French Section of the Workers' International The French Section of the Workers' International (, SFIO) was a major socialist political party in France which was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the present Socialist Party. The SFIO was founded in 1905 as the French representativ ...

(SFIO), the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

(ILP), the

Social Democratic Party of Switzerland The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (, SP; ), also called the Swiss Socialist Party (; , PS), is a List of political parties in Switzerland, political party in Switzerland. The SP has had two representatives on the Federal Council (Switzerl ...

(SPS), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), and the Federation of Romanian Socialist Parties (FPSR, created by splinter groups of the Socialist Party of Romania). In April 1921, it was joined by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. The Maximalist faction of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) also joined.

Members

The secretary of the IWUSP was the Austrian Friedrich Adler of the SPÖ; other prominent members were

Otto Bauer Otto Bauer (; 5 September 1881 – 4 July 1938) was an Austrian politician who was one of the founders and leading thinkers of the Austromarxists who sought a middle ground between social democracy and revolutionary socialism. He was a member of t ...

and Julius Martov. The group was heavily influenced by Austromarxism. It published ''Nachrichten der Internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialistischer Parteien'' ("News of the IWUSP"). Poale Zion ( labour Zionist) leaders

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

and Shlomo Kaplansky were active in the movement behind the Two and a Half International.

Ideology

The founders of the IWUSP were parties that saw neither the reformist

Second International The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties and Trade union, trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from mo ...

nor the

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

and pro-

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Third International as alternatives for affiliation. The IWUSP criticized the other two Internationals for what it perceived to be dogmatism, and advocated that more consideration should be given to the particularities of the political situation in each country. It worked for the unification of the Second and Third Internationals. From 2 to 5 April 1922 the Conference of the Three Internationals was held in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

with delegations from the three different international bodies to discuss a merger, but unity was not achieved and the Comintern withdrew from the talks.

Dissolution

In Germany on 24 September 1922, the USPD, one of the main components of the IWUSP, merged with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), a member of the Berne International. Discouraged by the intransigent position of the Third International, the Berne International and the IWUSP merged to form the

Labour and Socialist International The Labour and Socialist International (LSI) was an international organization of socialist and labourist parties, active between 1923 and 1940. The group was established through a merger of the rival Vienna International and the Berne Intern ...

(LSI) at a joint congress in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

in May 1923. Some, such as the FPSR, refused to join the new body. In the 1930s, a similar effort was made to create an international between the reformism of the

and the

Leninism Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

of the Third International, as the London Bureau of

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

socialist parties. Sometimes called the "Three-and-a-Half International", it involved many of the same parties.

References

External links

Archive of the International Working Union of Socialist Parties
* ttps://archive.org/details/TheSecondAndThirdInternationalsAndTheViennaUnion ''The Second and Third Internationals and the Vienna Union'' The proceedings of the Berlin conference {{Authority control History of socialism International socialist organizations Labour and Socialist International Organizations disestablished in 1923 Organizations established in 1921 Politics of the interwar period