Yes, Esperanto was a deeply political project. The ultimate goal was to spread international unity and peace, rather than just to create an interesting language

Yes, Esperanto was a deeply political project. The ultimate goal was to spread international unity and peace, rather than just to create an interesting language. At the time, it was taken very seriously by not insignificant numbers of people, and the movement intersected with other late 19th/early 20th century idealist movements, sometimes in unfortunate ways (eventually, both the Nazis and Soviets viewed Esperantists as spies, which pretty definitively shut down its momentum.)