The question of membership in the Socialist International had been debated before 1930 by the two parties that subsequently constituted Mapai, Hapo'el Haza'ir and Ahdut Ha'Avoda. The latter emphatically favored that course, which it regarded as a fundamental principle of its platform. Hapo'el Haza'ir, however, found unacceptable the Socialist International's views on class, as well as its Marxist concept of a unity of interests within the world proletariat. Hapo'el Haza'ir did eventually concede and entered the International as part of Mapai after the union of 1930. But the march of events caused the new party and its constituent parts eventually to retract. Even in the 1920s, before most of the European Socialist parties had attained the capacity to form governments, Marxist concepts of a proletarian unity of interests had been subject to severe tests, which had underscored the heterogeneous nature of labor interests in various countries. They were tried even more severely when those parties came to power after the Second World War. One member of Mapai declared that, given current realities, “it was convenient for us not to think about the international Socialist movement, but to concentrate on the Socialist movement in Eretz Israel [Palestine] and its achievements, and from it to gain confidence in total Socialist unification.” By the end of the 1940s, matters had become even more complicated. With the foundation of the state, Mapai's earlier ideological problems concerning participating in the International had been compounded by a complex of political questions. These necessitated decisions in an increasingly more fragile and complicated internal and external political context.