| My dissertation, a cultural history of international socialism in the period before World War I, shows how European socialism gave birth to one of the defining forces of twentieth century European and arguably World history: mass politics. In responding to internal and external challenges, European socialism developed a new style of political culture that gave the movement greater coherence and common purpose. As such, I explore the way that political performance—international socialist congresses, mass political spectacles, and anti-war demonstrations—served to project a vision of socialist unity and internationalism in a context of attempts to quash internal dissension and debate, and to paper over national allegiances and differences of European socialists. International socialism was a mass-based political movement that consisted of a set of shared values, expectations, practices, and activities. The defining feature of the movement was the culture of demonstration.; In Part One, I analyze how ideological conflict within international socialism—anarchism, Possibilism, Marxism, revisionism, and inter-nationalism—disrupted international socialist congresses and undermined not only the International's public projection of international solidarity but its actual unity. In Part Two, I describe the International's solution to counteract the forces of disunity and still display publicly a united front: the construction of a mass-based political congress culture centered around the concept of demonstration. International socialist congresses were transformed into mass political spectacles and contained an array of performative activities such as mass demonstration, inaugural ceremony, reception, congress symbolism, symbolic moments, and homage to the dead. In Part Three, I examine the role of the International Socialist Bureau in fostering a demonstration culture of mass political agitation beyond the framework of international socialist congresses. Demonstration culture based on mass politics, I contend, came to represent an effective cultural framework through which the movement of international socialism could meet both the challenges of establishing a sense of unity and coherence amid its great diversity and exercising political influence in the European national public spheres. |
