Zimmerwald Conference

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Postcard from Zimmerwald with advertising for the Beau Séjour guesthouse

The Zimmerwald conference took place during the First World War from September 5 to 8, 1915 in the Swiss town of Zimmerwald near Bern in the hotel "Beau Séjour". The conference was organized by the Swiss Social Democrat Robert Grimm with the aim of reorganizing the Socialist International . As a result, the 37 participants from twelve countries adopted the Zimmerwald Manifesto . The conference revealed massive differences between the pacifist majority, to which Robert Grimm belonged, and a radical minority around Lenin(so-called "Zimmerwalder Linke"), who wanted to transform the world war into a revolutionary world civil war. This began the division of the workers' movement into revolutionary and reformist socialists or communists and social democrats .

Organization of the conference

At the beginning of the First World War, most of the members of the socialist parties of the nations involved in the war adopted the so-called castle peace policy and supported the war efforts of their countries, even though the international had previously condemned militarism and war several times. Only a few exponents and parties remained anti-militarist. a. the German "Gruppe Internationale" around Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht , the Russian Bolsheviks , the Dutch tribunists around Herman Gorter and Anton Pannekoek , the revolutionary syndicalists in France and the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania . There were also opponents of war in the socialist parties of Switzerland and Italy, as well as among the Russian Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries , but they were in the minority.

The initiative for the conference came from the socialist parties of the neutral countries Italy and Switzerland. Personal contacts between Angelica Balabanova and Robert Grimm played a role. An official conference of representatives from both countries took place in Lugano on September 27, 1914 , at which a resolution was passed that contained essential points of the Zimmerwald Manifesto , which was later created . An attempt by the party leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland to organize a conference with representatives of the working class from all neutral countries failed, however.

Frustrated by the delaying tactics of the party leaderships, which were committed to the truce policy, Grimm decided in the spring of 1915 to go past the official party leaderships and organize a conference of the opposition forces within the labor movement. Encouraged by positive signals from France and Great Britain, the Italian and Swiss socialists organized a preparatory meeting for an international conference in Bern on July 11, 1915, in which only those groups who opposed the truce and wanted to advocate the continuation of the class struggle were to meet . This session was attended by:

In addition, a group around Lenin met separately for a preliminary discussion. The representatives of the Russian workers living in exile in Switzerland, such as Zinoviev , Bersin, Radek and Trotsky , but also representatives from Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland such as Höglund , Nerman , Borchardt and Platten took part .

The conference

Color lithograph of the Hotel Beau Séjour

The delegates of the various invited groups met on September 5, 1915 in the Volkshaus Bern . Only the British delegation was unable to travel as they were not issued passports. The group left Bern unnoticed by the Bernese police in four wagons and was driven to the village of Zimmerwald, which is about ten kilometers from Bern, where they stayed at the Hotel Beau Séjour.

The conference began with the reading of greetings from delegates who were unable to attend, such as a letter from Karl Liebknecht, and a discussion of the current situation.

The first success at the conference was a joint declaration by the German and French delegations condemning the war and calling for peace without annexations. They pledged to fight the civil peace policies in their respective countries and to stir up the class struggle to force their governments to end the war. The declaration was signed by the German representatives Georg Ledebour and Adolph Hoffmann and the French representatives Alphonse Merrheim and Albert Bourderon .

From today's perspective, the most prominent participant in the conference was Lenin . He had lived in Bern since 1914 and had prepared for the conference by exchanging ideas with Alexandra Michailowna Kollontai and Karl Radek in July and preparing drafts for possible resolutions. Lenin assembled the delegates from the left wing in the Volkshaus in Bern to prepare them accordingly and to swear to a common position. All later members of the Zimmerwald Left belonged to this group. However, Lenin's drafts were defeated in a vote in favor of Radek's. At the conference, however, this draft was rejected by 19 votes to 12 and was not forwarded to the commission, which edited the final document.

Grimm, Ledebour, Lenin, Trotsky, Merrheim, Rakovsky and Modigliani were represented in the editorial committee. In the end, they decided not to draft a "resolution" but drafted a "manifesto". Three drafts faced each other, one from the right wing of the German socialists, one from Trotsky and one from the left wing around Lenin. The final text was written by Grimm and Trotsky and was closest to Trotsky's draft. Despite great reservations on all sides, all delegates were finally convinced to speak out unanimously in favor of the manifesto. Several delegations, however, insisted on adopting additions to the 'Zimmerwald Manifesto'.

The last document that was jointly adopted by all delegates was a resolution that expressed the sympathy of the conference to all victims of the war and persecuted opponents of the war and specifically addressed the fate of the Poles, Belgians, Armenians and Jews as well as those who were politically persecuted. Also were mentioned by name Karl Liebknecht , Clara Zetkin , Rosa Luxembourg , Pierre Monatte and murdered Jean Jaurès .

Most recently, the International Socialist Commission was set up, the secretariat of which was to be located in Bern. It was their job to keep the various groups in contact and to publish the results of the conference. This commission included Grimm, Morgari, Naine and Balabanova. Among other things, they prepared the next conference in Kiental in 1916.

Lenin's role in the Zimmerwald conference was not as important as might be assumed based on his later leadership role in Russia. He only spoke up once on a fundamental question and was also unable to exert any significant influence. Radek's draft resolution, which was influenced by Lenin, was later put into a drawer by Grimm. His reservations about the Zimmerwald Manifesto were not so characteristic that one can already speak of a leadership role within the later “Zimmerwald Left”.

Consequences for social democracy in Switzerland

As a result of the Zimmerwald conference, the truce policy of the social democratic party leadership in Switzerland came under increasing pressure from the grassroots, in particular because the social situation of the workers worsened as a result of the war. In Switzerland, the party congress of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS) on November 20, 1915 therefore decided by a large majority to respond to the demands of the Zimmerwald movement. As a result, the SPS left the truce and, by 1917 at the latest, again adopted an oppositional stance on the Swiss political system that was committed to the class struggle, which was particularly evident in a strong emphasis on anti-militarism. The Zimmerwald movement did not represent a fundamental turning point for Swiss social democracy, but it did trigger a fundamental change in personnel, with a new generation under the leadership of Robert Grimm taking over the leadership of the party.

Within the SPS, the so-called "Zimmerwald Left" was formed, a group of party oppositionists who, although committed to the Zimmerwald Manifesto, did not want to submit to the new party leadership under Grimm. The leading figures Fritz Platten, Ernst Nobs and Willi Münzenberg are to be settled here. Lenin's influence on this group was minimal, although he addressed the group directly in a programmatic article entitled “The tasks of the left Zimmerwald in the Swiss Social Democratic Party”.

List of participants

(according to the conference protocol)

(British delegates Bruce Glasier and Frederick Jowett of the Labor Party and Edwin Fairchild of the British Socialists were unable to attend because they were not issued passports.)

Zimmerwald Left

Follow-up conferences

Kiental Conference 1916

List of participants at the Kiental conference
List of participants at the Kiental conference

From April 24 to 30, 1916, another international conference took place in Kiental , a mountain village in the Bernese Oberland, at which representatives of the socialist parties critical of the war came together. Compared to Zimmerwald, the revolutionary direction (the so-called Zimmerwald Left ) had gained influence over the centrist one. The will for a revolutionary class struggle and the condemnation of "social patriotism" found their way into the resolution of the conference.

Hotel Bären in Kiental

Stockholm Conference 1917

The third Zimmerwald Conference took place in Stockholm from September 5 to 12, 1917. Among the 30 delegates from the USA, Denmark, England, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany ( Käte Duncker , Hugo Haase , Georg Ledebour and Arthur Stadthagen ). The conference adopted a manifesto to end the war. The Bolshevik delegate left at the beginning of the conference. At the conference, the decision to remove Robert Grimm as chairman of the ISK was confirmed. This conference should not be confused with the Stockholm Peace Conference of the Second International of June 1917.

Dissolution of the Zimmerwald Association

With the establishment of the Communist International on March 4, 1919 in Moscow and the resolution there resolved to dissolve the Zimmerwald Association, "everything that was really revolutionary [...]" was transferred to the Communist International. From then on, the Socialist and Communist Internationals went their separate ways.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The resolution is printed in: Lademacher, Die Zimmerwalder Bewegungs, Vol. 1, p. 22.
  2. ↑ Jost, Left Radicalism, p. 31.
  3. ↑ Jost, Left Radicalism, p. 31.
  4. ↑ Jost, Left Radicalism, pp. 25f.
  5. ↑ Article of March 26, 1917, Lenin, Werke, Vol. 23, p. 380ff. Quoted in Jost, Linksradikalismus, p. 34.
  6. ↑ Jost, Left Radicalism, p. 33f.
  7. ↑ History of the German labor movement. Timeline. Part 1. From the beginning to 1917 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1965, p. 339.
  8. ^ VI Lenin: Letters. Volume IV. August 1914 - October 1917 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1967, p. 561.
  9. ^ Minutes of the 1st Congress of the Communist International . Hamburg 1921, p. 147.