League of Peace and Freedom

The International League of Peace and Freedom (French: Ligue internationale de la paix et de la liberte) was a political international dedicated to building peace and freedom through the establishment of a United States of Europe. Founded by French republicans in the wake of the Luxembourg Crisis, the League aimed to unite European democrats of all tendencies under the platform of democratic republicanism, decentralisation and federalism. At the League's first congress in Geneva, the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin spoke about the establishment of a European federation by asserting the primacy of international justice against the interests of the nation state; it concluded with a call for the abolition of standing armies and the improvement of the wellbeing of the working classes.

Under Bakunin's influence, the League's central committee then adopted a programme that advocated for freedom of religion and secularism, the creation of a decentralisated European federation with full equality before the law, and the abolition of social classes and the redistribution of wealth. The social question caused a split within the League's second congress, where Bakunin unsuccessfully pushed for the organisation to adopt the platform of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), which called for social equality and the abolition of private property; he subsequently left the League and established the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (AIDS).

Following the Franco-Prussian War, the League effectively collapsed to its internal divisions and its attempts to organise further peace congresses were stillborn. The League's advocacy of a Federal Europe was later taken up in the 20th century and its attempts to foment peace constituted a precursor to those of the League of Nations.