Second International

The Second International, formally the Socialist International, was a federation of socialist and labour parties founded in Paris in 1889 and dominated by the Social Democratic Party of Germany. It established International Workers' Day on 1 May, popularised the demand for an eight-hour day, expelled the anarchists and condemned revisionism at its Amsterdam Congress of 1904. From 1905 the prevention of war became its central task, and its congresses at Stuttgart, Copenhagen and Basel called for working-class action against war. In 1914 its major parties rallied to their nations' war efforts and it collapsed, succeeded by the Communist International and the Labour and Socialist International.