When the syndicalist international, IWMA (now IWA) held its founding congress at the turn of the years 1922-1923, it was against a background of great upheavals. World War I had ended a few years earlier, a war which was immediately followed by widespread revolutionary movements in a number of countries, setting lasting trends in the development of the world.
During the war the social democratic international collapsed, and its affiliated parties threw their internationalism overboard. Under the leadership of especially their Belgian chairman Emilie Vandervelde, they gave active support to the war in the name of their respective countries. The reformist trade union international collapsed at about the same time.
After the end of the war, attempts began to re-build the international organizations. The Communist international was organized at a congress in Moscow i 1919, as a continuation of the so-called Zimmerwald international which has been etstablished already during the war. The trade union international was re-established the same year at a congress in Amsterdam. The social democratic international was formed in 1921 at a congress in Vienna, with the Austrian Friedrich Adler as its prime mover. This organization merged with the social democratic international in 1923.
On communist initiativ a congress in Moscow in 1921 founded the so-called Red trade union international. This organization made great efforts to get the syndicalists as members, but the syndicalist organizations refused, being unwilling to be involved in a union international led by a political movement, in this case the communists.
