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The Democratic Association of Victoria was a short lived organisation formed in 1872 as the Australian section of the International Workingmen’s Association (IWMA) that Marx had established 8 years previously (the First International). Its membership included militant bookmakers and printers from Collingwood; its formation was precipitated by a cabinet-makers’ strike and it expressed the desire of its members for a united trade union along the lines expressed by Marx is his address to the IWMA - its literature does not mention state ownership of the means of production. It issued a weekly newspaper, the Internationalist, and subsequently a magazine, the Australian International Monthly. It had a co-operative store at 135A Little Collins Street. It sent a representative, W.E. Harcourt, to the general council of the IWMA.

Resources

Manifestos

• Manifesto of the Democratic Association of Victoria, 1872. Transcript HTML Transcript PDF Details

Newspaper Articles

• Dawson, J.A., 'The "crisis" of democracy', Southern Socialist Review, Dawson, J.A., Melbourne, c1947. Image PDF Details