Key to the growth of working-class internationalism was the political philosopher Robert Owen, who in 1835 established the Association of All Classes of All Nations, which corresponded with socialists in Belgium, France, Germany and the United States.
[5] The two founding figures of the FD were the Chartists George Julian Harney, a British internationalist with strong ties to Germany, and Ernest Charles Jones, the editor of the newspaper Northern Star.
In response to a congress on free trade, which was held in Brussels in September 1847, Marx, Harney and Friedrich Engels attempted to establish a genuinely international organisation, with sections in countries other than Britain.
Its efforts to establish sections in France and Belgium were short-lived, as the outbreak of the Revolutions of 1848 provoked many of the FD's members to return from exile and participate in the revolutionary events in their native countries.
[10] After the February Revolution established the French Second Republic, Harney and Jones travelled to Paris, along with the German communists Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and Heinrich Bauer, in order to support the Provisional Government.
[11] As revolution spread across the continent, and Chartism and Irish nationalism grew in the United Kingdom, the British government passed the Aliens Act, which resulted in the removal of all foreign citizens from the FD's membership.
[15] The FD's advocacy of class conflict led to some Chartists splitting from the organisation in 1847; they went on to establish the People's International League, which aligned closer to Giuseppe Mazzini's internationalist ideology.
[16] The FD and IA went on to lay the foundations for the establishment of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA), which counted former Fraternal Democrats Ludwik Oborski [pl] and Karl Schapper among its members.