[1] When the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) was established, Schwitzguébel founded the organisation's section in Sonvilier and represented it at the Geneva Congress of 1866.

[2] He also became a key opponent to the influence of the "bourgeois socialist" Pierre Coullery [fr] in the Romandy federation.

[1] Along with fellow Swiss internationalists James Guillaume and Auguste Spichiger [fr], Schwitzguébel became a supporter of Mikhail Bakunin's libertarian socialism and began to champion his collectivist programme for a free association of producers.

[2] After the suppression of the Paris Commune, Schwitzguébel travelled to the French capital and provided Communards with fake passports to aid their escape to Switzerland.

At the Jura Federation's final congress in 1880, while he continued to uphold a programme for establishing an anarchist society, he also began to argue for the formation of a socialist political party to participate in elections.