[My ow translation of the Russian text in Nashe Slovo No. 221, 22. October 1915, compared to the German translation. Corrections of English and Russia native speakers would be extremely welcome]
An international conference was held over four days in the Swiss village of Zimmerwald, bringing together socialist internationalists from most European countries for the first time since the outbreak of war. In our notes ‘From the Notebook’*, we have so far only been able to talk in connection with the conference. Now we can finally provide our readers with some factual information about the conference, calling things by their proper names. But even now we are still unable to publish the conference manifesto.
The preliminary history of the conference is known to all readers of Golos and Nashe Slovo. These newspapers carefully noted all manifestations of internationalism during the war and all attempts to restore international ties: the conferences in Lugano and Copenhagen, the women’s conference, and the congress of socialist youth.
Having given a general description of the conference’s work and the ideological and political groups within it in previous notes, we now wish to report the main data on its composition.
* * *
Two of the major belligerent countries were not represented: England and Austria-Hungary.
The English socialists wanted to turn their trip to the conference into a propaganda stunt and openly declared to the authorities why they needed foreign passports, thus hoping to force their government to take a position on the international proletarian struggle for peace. The government did indeed take a position … by refusing to issue passports. The German press, including the social-patriotic press, was quick to publicise this example of police manners, which undermined the ‘prestige’ of tried and tested British liberalism. But in doing so, the most pious German press deprived itself of the opportunity to continue telling its readers that all English socialists, as good patriots, had refused to participate in the international conference.
The situation in Austria-Hungary is incomparably sadder. Divided along national lines long before the war, deeply infected with nationalism, and completely demoralised by the fall of German social democracy, the Austrian ,Workers‘ Party was a non-entity during the course of the war. In Austria, parliament was not convened once, socialist deputies had no opportunity to openly demonstrate their point of view to the masses, the opposition remained fragmented and formless, and there were no people among them who wanted and had the moral, let alone the formal, right to participate in a conference on behalf of revolutionary socialism in Austria.
The French delegation was reduced to a minimum in terms of numbers by circumstances and the actions of the authorities: one member was denied a passport, another was turned back at the border, and the most prominent internationalists were tied down by their military duties. The French delegation was represented by the trade unions. There was not a single deputy at the conference: the party opposition, led by Pressemane and others, had pitifully capitulated to the official party line at the national conference on 14 July. At the top of the French party, the most ‘parliamentary’ of all the parties of the International, there was not a single person, either among the Jaurèsists or among the Guesdists, who was capable of and had the right to speak at an international socialist conference on behalf of the revolutionary section of the French proletariat! This honour fell to the French syndicalists**. Their leadership included a number of honest and steadfast figures of the labour movement, such as Monatte, Merrheim, Dumoulin***, Rosmer, and others. The old groups were particularly susceptible to the influence of the events of the war in France. While patriotic syndicalists such as Jouhaux (the very same whom Kautsky and Bernstein came to Switzerland to meet) are going hand in hand with the Sembat-Guesde party, Monatte and his friends were working hand in hand with the social democrats-internationalists of Russia and Germany.
The German delegation lacked the most prominent representatives of the opposition: Liebknecht was mobilised, Luxemburg and Zetkin were in prison (shortly after the conference, K. Zetkin was, as is well known, released). Nevertheless, the ‘opposition’ was represented in its entirety: the minority of the parliamentary faction, the Internationale magazine, internationalist women, the Frankfurt and Stuttgart opposition, the Lichtstrahlen magazine group, and others.
The Italian delegation represented the party as a whole: its central committee and parliamentary faction. On the right flank of the delegation stood the secretary of the parliamentary faction, Oddino Morgari, who had been so actively involved in preparing for the conference, and on the left flank stood Angelica Balabanova, a member of the central committee and a contributor to our newspaper. In the theoretical sphere, the Italian delegates, with the exception of Balabanova, do not hold a Marxist position, but rather an eclectic one.
Russia’s Social Democracy was represented by the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, Nashe Slovo, the Latvian Social Democrats, the Organising Committee of the Mensheviks, and the Bund’s Foreign Committee, the latter for informational purposes. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was represented by Zhizn and the internationalist elements of its Central Committee.
There were three delegations from Poland, corresponding to the number of Social Democratic organisations based on the principles of international class struggle: the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (the Main Executive Committee Group), the Social Democratic “Opposition” and the Polish Socialist Party (“Left Wing”).
The Balkan Social Democratic Federation, which had united in July at the Bucharest conference, was represented by a delegation from the Bulgarian (V. Kolarov) and Romanian parties. From the latter, Ch. Rakovsky, one of the closest friends of Nashe Slovo, took an active part in the work of the conference.
Of the two Dutch revolutionary groups, only one was represented, namely the International group, in which the well-known social-democratic writer Roland-Holst plays a leading role. The Tribune, a group close to the Bolsheviks, did not send a representative, apparently for purely technical reasons.
Sweden and Norway were represented by a delegation from the Revolutionary Union of Social Democratic Youth, led by Deputy Höglund
The Swiss Social Democrats were represented by Grimm, one of the most active organisers of the conference, Karl Moor, Charles Naine and Fritz Platten, all acting on their own initiative.
* * *
The main content of the conference consisted of reports from national delegations and the drafting of a manifesto calling on the proletariat of Europe to resume the revolutionary struggle for peace, brotherhood of nations and socialism.
After the unanimous adoption of the manifesto, all that remained was to establish a bureau as a permanent centre for the revival of international ties and the international campaign against war. Such an institution was created in Bern under the name of the International Socialist Commission, consisting of three persons (Grimm, Naine, Morgari). Formally, the Commission is not opposed to the old Bureau. But in essence, the formation of a genuine socialist international — there can be no doubt about this — will take place around the Bern Commission, not the Brussels Bureau. In any case, the efforts of Russia’s internationalists will be directed in this direction.
* My articles in Nashe Slovo. IV. 22. L. T.
** One of the delegates, Bourderon, is, admittedly, a long-standing member of the Socialist Party. But even he represented trade union organisations at the conference, not the party.
*** Dumoulin, like Merrheim, later returned with contrite heads to the bosom of Jouhaux and Co.
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