(1) The urgency of the question. It is on everyone's lips and in everyone's ears.

Why?

(α) War inflames national enmity and threatens national oppression.

(β) Imperialism is the epoch of the oppression of nations on a new historical basis.

(2) The task of Z. L. (the "Zimmerwald Left") is to unite and, on this basis as well, smash social-chauvinism, to clarify the consciousness of the working class.