International Socialist Commission - Kienthal To The Russian Revolution

Kienthal To The Russian Revolution

The ISC set to work arranging for a new congress of Zimmerald adherents which met at Kienthal, Switzerland on April 24, 1916. Forty three delegates met at this conference, representing Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, Portugal and Great Britain. The ISC publicly announced that the Conference was going to be held in the Netherlands to avoid passport denial or secret police surveillance, but a number of delegates were prevented from attending anyway.

The Kienthal Conference adopted another manifesto and some important resolutions, but it declined to advocate a policy to be followed by its adherents toward the conference of Neutral Socialists scheduled to meet at the Hague that summer. This was deferred to the second meeting of the ISC Enlarged Committee on May 2. Each organization that participated in the Kienthal Conference was represented by one delegate. This meeting "considered some administrative matters, authenticated the Kienthal resolutions, and discussed matters of parliamentary action" as well as the Hague Conference. One group, headed by Martov, advocated participation, arguing that no opportunity should be missed to expose to the workers the "cause of the failure" of the International Socialist Bureau. Zinoviev argued against, claiming it would only confuse the workers. The meeting ultimately became deadlocked, with five votes for each proposition, so it was decided that each party should make up its own mind whether to attend, but they should uphold the Zimmerwald resolutions if they did.

The ISC Enlarged Committee attempted to meet again at Olten on February 1, 1917 to consider a proposed Paris conference of Entente socialist parties. The ISC called a meeting of the Enlarged Committee members of the Allied countries, but only those groups with a presence in Switzerland were able to attend. The meeting therefore, only issued a none binding declaration recommending its affiliates not to attend. An official list of delegates was, again, not published, but the official communique stated "only those delegates of the three Russian socialist parties, who were in Switzerland - the representatives of the National Committee of the Polish Socialist Party (the Levitsa) and of the Bund, as well as a representative of La Vie Ouvriere in Paris, who resides in Switzerland - came to the conference." The editors of the Hoover Institutions The Bolsheviks and the World War, however, state specifically that the organizations represented included the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the Russian Social Revolutionaries, as well as Henri Guilbeaux and Willi Münzenberg.