officially International Working Men's Association
Federation of workers' groups, founded in 1864 by British and French trade-union leaders.
Its structure was highly centralized, based on local groups that were integrated into national federations. It was split by conflicting schools of socialist thought, including those of Proudhon , Louis-Auguste Blanqui , and Mikhail Bakunin . A clash between Marx's centralized {{link=socialism">socialism and Bakunin's anarchism in 1872 caused the International to split, and it was dissolved in 1876. Though it was feared at the time as a formidable power with millions of members, and several countries tried to have it outlawed, its membership was never more than 20,000 and it served mainly as a unifying force for labour in Europe.