delegates were not allowed by the government to attend. It issued a manifesto addressed "To the Proletariat of all Nations," accusing the capitalists and jingoes of bringing on the war. It called on the workers of the world, no longer deceived by the fair promises of the selfish ruling classes, to condemn the war, as a crime, to call for the restoration of Belgian independence and to warn against annexation.

All wars were declared wars of aggression; and civil insurrection against war in all countries was urged: war against war. Another conference of the same group was held in April, 1916, at Kienthal, Switzerland. The principal leaders who signed the Zimmerwald manifesto were Ledebour and Hoffman for Germany, Bourderon and Merrheim for France, Modigliani and Lazzari for Italy, Lenin, Axelrod and Babroff for Russia and Kolarov for Bulgaria.

One of the French delegates, Merrheim, long after, told how for a whole day Lenin argued with him to induce him on his return to France from Zimmerwald to make open war on war, to induce French labor to go on a general strike and throw down its arms. Merrheim said that as at that moment the German armies were within thirty miles of Paris this proposal to betray his country made him from that time Lenin's enemy.

The Conference at Kienthal on April 24-30, 1916, was also attended by about forty delegates, but the majority were members of the official Italian Socialist Party, as well as some Swiss and Russians, two Germans and three Frenchmen (Brizon, Blanc and Raffin-Dugens). At neither of these conferences were there any representatives of the Major Socialist parties of France or Germany and none at all from England. The general Congress of French Socialists, held at Christmas, 1915, specifically repudiated the Zimmerwald program by 2,736 votes to 76. The National Council in April, 1916, did the same by 1,996 votes to 960, repudiating the peace-at-any-price program.

The French Socialist leaders without exception rallied to the government and several entered the ministry. There were however many of the minor leaders and of the rank and file who became defeatists and caused anxious moments.

The German Socialists did the same, with certain important qualified or unqualified exceptions. A large group formed the Independent Socialist Party because it did not approve of the purpose of the war. It was led by Haase. This group, however,

did not refuse to vote for the war credits. A smaller group of the so-called "Spartacans" led by Karl Liebknecht openly opposed the war and refused to vote for the war credits.

In England the Independent Labor Party and the British Socialist Party opposed the war and suffered greatly from popular indignation in consequence. But their influence was negligible and was not aggressive except in theory.

It was in Italy that the disloyalty of the Socialist Party led to the verge of a national catastrophe, which will be later referred to. Meanwhile various attempts were being made at International Socialist Peace Conferences. Early in 1917 the Socialist Party of the United States cabled a suggestion for a conference, which the Dutch-Scandinavian neutral committee acted upon, to bring together delegates from the warring as well as the neutral countries. This was opposed by the Allied governments and was abandoned.

But a peculiar situation arose when Henderson the English Labor Socialist leader, then a member of the British Cabinet, visited Russia in the Spring of 1917, and met there Albert Thomas, the French Socialist leader, then Minister of Munitions. This was after the fall of the Czar and before the advent of the Bolsheviki, when the Allies were arranging for the continuation of Russia in the war. The Russian Socialist leaders Skobilev, Tzeretelli and Tcheidze favored an International Socialist meeting and the All-Russian Council of Workers' and Soldier's Delegates issued a call for a conference to meet at Stockholm in August. It was an irregular call because not issued by the International Bureau of The Hague, but the invitation was accepted by nearly all the Socialist groups, by the French Socialist Party, the two German parties, the Austrian and Hungarian groups, the Belgian S. D. L. P., the United States Socialist Party and in England by the Independent Labor Party, British Socialist Party and Labor Party, and the Italian Socialist Party. The Congress never met because the Allied governments refused passports to the delegates.

On the other hand a conference of the adherents to the Zimmerwald program took place in September at Stockholm, which was made the seat of the bureau of its permanent committee, which had previously been at Berne. This so-called Zimmerwald Agitation Committee was reorganized with the exclusion of the Swiss delegate Grimm, owing to the scandalous intrigue called the

"Grimm affair," connected with German bribery of Socialist leaders.

Serious efforts to resuscitate the Second International were made after the close of the war in the two important conferences at Berne, February 2-9, 1919, and at Lucerne, August 2-9, 1919.

KIENTHAL CONFERENCE -APRIL, 1916

The Manifesto issued by the Socialist Conference at Kienthal, reads as follows:

"The Second International Socialist Conference offers warmest sympathy and greetings of solidarity to all the faithful, courageous, pioneers, who, in the midst of a bloody world catastrophe held high the flag of Socialism, and who, in spite of domestic truce and reconciliation theories, recognize no armistice in the battle against capitalism.

"While the Conference extends greetings to all those brave fighters for freedom, right and peace, at the same time, it expresses its disgust and its vigorous protest against the reactionary measures, and unheard of persecutions, whose victims our comrades are, in Germany as in Russia, in England as in France, yes, even in neutral Sweden.

"The Conference directs the attention of the workingmen of all countries on the one hand to the ruthless raging of the forces of reaction, which stands out in such sharp contrast with the legend of War for Freedom;' and on the other hand, directs attention to the imposing, enthusiastic, stirring rise of the revolutionary social democrats who are waging war, just as expressly against social patriotism, its confusing teachings, and its hypocritical spokesman, as against the policy of their own governments.

"The Conference greets the newly-freed representatives of the Socialist women in Germany and in France, whose incarceration has only increased that influence upon the masses.

"The Conference raises a decided protest against the persecution of the Jews by the Russian Government, and by their helpers, Liberal Bourgeoisie,' which, according to its accustomed system, endeavors to make the Jews pay for the dissatisfaction of the population as well as for military disasters.

"The Conference calls upon all parties, organizations and minorities, who took part in the Zimmerwald Conference, in imitation of their persecuted comrades, to stamp out the spirit of dissatisfaction and of protest in the masses, to educate them in the spirit of the International Socialist Democracy, in order that the individual sparks and coals of discontent may rise to a mighty flame of invective and widespread protest and in order that the International Proletariat may, in accordance with its historic mission, hasten the world liberating task the fall of capitalism."

THE REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST MEETING AT STOCKHOLM, IN 1917

The meeting planned for September, 1917, at Stockholm, for the Socialist parties belonging to the Second International, to go with representatives of the more radical parties, which was planned in connection with the Russian government preceding the Bolshevik, was prevented by the Entente governments, as we have seen. In its place, there met, in Stockholm, September 5-7, a conference of revolutionary Socialists, who issued a manifesto reaffirming the Zimmerwald Manifesto of 1915. This meeting may be considered as the third meeting of the revolutionary Socialists, the other two having been Zimmerwald and Kienthal. There attended representatives of the Independent Socialist Party of Germany, of the opposition group of Austria, and nearly all the Russian Socialist organizations, of the regular Socialist parties of Finland, Roumania, Poland and Switzerland, and of the radical wings of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The United States were represented by members of the Socialist Propaganda League, and International Brotherhood. The The delegates from England, France and Italy were prevented by their governments from attending. The long manifesto issued by this conference was practically a reiteration of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal documents, and called for a general international strike, to bring the war to an immediate close.

14

DOCUMENTS

I. CALL FOR A THIRD INTERNATIONAL AT MOSCOW

In January 1919, the Russian Soviet government sent out a call for the Congress of the Third International. It proposed the following platform:

1. The present period is the period of the dissolution and ruin of the whole capitalist system of the world and the disappearance of European culture.

2. The task of the proletariat consists today in taking possession at once of the governmental power this power signifies the annihilation of the present apparatus of government-in order to replace it by the apparatus of proletarian power.

3. This new governmental apparatus should incorporate the dictatorship of the working class and, in some places, that also of the small peasants and agricultural laborers, and shall be the instrument of the systematic overthrow of the exploiting classes.

4. The dictatorship of the proletariat should aim at the immediate expropriation of capitalism and the suppression of private property and in its transfer to the proletarian state under Socialist administration of the working class.

5. In order to make the Socialist revolution secure, the disarming of the bourgeoisie and of its agents and the general arming of the proletariat are necessary.

6. The fundamental condition of the state is the mass action of the proletariat going as far as open conflict with arms in hand against the governmental power of capitalism.

7. The old International has split into three principal groups: the openly patriotic Socialists; the minority Socialists, composed of always hesitant elements, lastly the revolutionary Left Wing.

8. Against the Social patriots only a combat without mercy is possible. As to the Centre, the tactics consist in separating out the revolutionary elements, in a pitiless criticism of its leaders, and in systematically dividing its adherents.

9. On the other side it is necessary to proceed to a bloc movement with those elements of the revolutionary workers who, although they have not formerly belonged to the party, now adopt as a whole the point of view of the dictatorship of the proletariat under the form of Soviet power, especially the Syndicalist ele ments of the labor movement.