V. I.

Lenin

On Zimmerwald [1]

It is now quite clear that we made a mistake by not withdrawing
from it.

Everybody is being bamboozled by hopes from
Stockholm. Meanwhile t.he Stockholm Conference is being
“postponed” from month to month.

And Zimmerwald is “ waiting ” for Stockholm! The Kautsky
men plus the Italians; i.e., the Zimmerwald majority, are
“waiting” for Stockholm.

And we are joining in this comedy, bearing responsibility for
it before the workers.

It is a disgrace.

We must withdraw from Zimmerwald immediately .

By staying there for information only, we lose nothing, but we are not going to be
held responsible for the comedy of “waiting” for
Stockholm.

In leaving rotten Zimmerwald we must decide immediately, at the
plenary meeting on September 3, 1917, to call a conference of the Left-wingers , and entrust this to the Stockholm
representatives.

What has happened is that, after we made a. blunder by staying
in Zimmerwald, our Party, the world’s only internationalist party
with seventeen newspapers, etc., is playing at compromise with the
German and Italian Martovs and Tseretelis, just as Martov is
compromising with Tsereteli, just as Tsereteli is compromising
with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and as the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are compromising with the bourgeoisie.

And this is called “standing for” the Third
International!!!

---
Notes:
[1]
The document “ On Zimmerwald ” was written by Lenin in connection
with the plenary meeting of the Party’s Central Committee, fixed
for September 3 (16).

Lenin considered that membership in the Zimmerwald association, most of whose members adhered to a Centrist position,
hampered and delayed the founding of a third, Communist
International.