Discontent with the war was naturally most deeply felt by women, who in many ways were the main victims everywhere. The Bolshevik women’s journal Rabotnitsa took the initiative to campaign for an international conference of left socialist women and wrote to Klara Zetkin as secretary of the International Women’s Bureau, who immediately agreed to it. In March 1915 in Oslo, there were mass demonstrations of women against the war. In the same month the Berne Socialist Women’s Conference of German and Austro-Hungarian Social Democrats was convened by socialist leaders of the German bloc, anxious not to be outdone by their counterparts in the Entente. Lenin was quick to see this as an opportunity to put forward the ideas of revolutionary internationalism. This was a chance to put the work among women to good use. At the conference there were 25 delegates from eight countries. The Bolsheviks were represented by four delegates, including Inessa Armand and Krupskaya. The Polish delegate, Kamenskaya, also stood for a hard-line Leninist position. The majority, however, were muddled centrists, pacifists, and reformists. Had Rosa Luxemburg been present, it might at least have made a difference to the flavour of the proceedings, if not the final outcome. But Rosa was in a German prison, and her place was taken by Klara Zetkin, who, much to Lenin’s annoyance, made all sorts of concessions to the pacifist majority and watered down Lenin’s position to remove its revolutionary essence.
A courageous stand on the war at this conference would have been a rallying call for the left internationally. Lenin wrote a declaration for this meeting which was not passed. Instead, the majority took the line of “We can’t criticise the parties”, and must confine ourselves to “supporting peace”. When the Bolshevik delegates opposed this and stuck out for their resolution, they were subject to a barrage of criticism, and portrayed as sectarians and splitters for standing in the way of unity. Lenin already anticipated such accusations which he had heard so many times. The left reformists and centrists have always denounced the real revolutionaries as ‘sectarians’ because they refuse to compromise on principled questions. On this, Lenin wrote to Alexandra Kollontai:
You underline that “what we must put forward is a slogan that would unite us all.” Frankly, what I fear most of all at the present time is just this kind of indiscriminate unity, which in my opinion is most dangerous and harmful to the proletariat.
Lenin was indignant and spared no feelings in his denunciation of these so-called peace initiatives, even though Klara Zetkin was friendly to him. Indeed he was particularly scathing about her role.
She would have to see, she could not help seeing, he said, that sliding down into pacifism at such a time was impossible. All the issues at stake had to be emphasised very strongly.
The accusations of ‘splitting’ cut no ice with Lenin. “‘No matter that we are so few,’ he said once, ‘We shall have millions with us’.” (Quoted in NK Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 301 and p. 303.) In another letter to Alexandra Kollontai written in July 1915, Lenin underlined the impermissibility of unprincipled agreements with Kautsky and the ‘lefts’ on the grounds of preserving unity:
In international affairs we shall not be for rapprochement with Haase-Bernstein-Kautsky (for in practice they want unity with the Südekums and to shield them, they want to get away with Left phrases and to change nothing in the old rotten party). We cannot stand for the watchword of peace, because we consider it supremely muddled, pacifist, petty-bourgeois, helping the governments (they now want to be with one hand ‘for peace’, in order to climb out of their difficulties) and obstructing the revolutionary struggle.
In our opinion, the Left should make a common declaration of principle (1) unquestionably condemning the social-chauvinists and opportunists, (2) giving a programme of revolutionary action (whether to say civil war or revolutionary mass action, is not so important), (3) against the watchword of ‘defence of the fatherland’, etc. A declaration of principle by the ‘Left’, in the name of several countries, would have a gigantic significance (of course, not in the spirit of the Zetkin philistinism which she got adopted at the Women’s Conference at Berne; Zetkin evaded the question of condemning social-chauvinism!! out of a desire for ‘peace’ with the Südekums+Kautsky??). (LCW, To Alexandra Kollontai, 11/7/1915, vol. 35, pp. 193-94.)
A few days later, the International Socialist Youth Conference was also held in Berne, summoned by the secretary of the Swiss Young Socialists, Willy Münzenberg. The German and French YS refused to participate, arguing that the war question was outside their competence. The Austrian YS took the same position. Despite this, delegates came from Germany and the RSDLP was represented by Inessa Armand and GI Safarov. The majority even here were ‘centrists’. The Bolshevik resolution was lost 13-3 and a pacifist resolution was carried, as with the women. But they did decide to hold an ‘International (anti-militarist) Youth Day’ annually and publish a journal, Youth International, which carried articles by Lenin and Liebknecht.
Lenin’s comments on the conference of the youth was that it was full of good intentions but basically ‘marking time’, that is to say: the decisive break with the social-chauvinists was avoided. These early efforts did not lead very far. The time was not yet ripe. The ground not sufficiently prepared for a big shift to the left. On the other hand, it can be argued that Lenin’s position was out of step with the majority – he went a bit too far, too fast. But as the war dragged on with no end in sight, the situation changed. The current was flowing to the left in many countries, and this was eventually reflected inside the mass organisations, beginning with the unions, which began to reflect the mood of opposition developing in the masses against the intolerable impositions, exploitation, profiteering, and inflation, which was expressed in a wave of strikes. In Britain, the birth of the shop stewards’ movement was a direct result of the radicalisation of the workers and the class collaboration and remoteness of the trade union bureaucracy.
The first expression of these stirrings of revolution was the strengthening of left reformist and centrist currents in the leadership of the Socialist Parties. The pacifist declarations of the leaders reflected in a distorted, emasculated way the desperate yearning for peace, the hatred of the imperialist war of the mass of workers, peasants, soldiers, and women. In June 1915, Kautsky, Haase, and Bernstein published a declaration, ‘The Demands of the Moment’, which appeared in the Leipziger Volkszeitung, protesting against the ‘war of annexation’ and calling for a speedy conclusion of peace. This belated action of the opportunist leaders was a feeble reflection of the mood of the masses. At every opportunity Lenin subjected the pacifism of the centrists to withering criticism.