V. I.

Lenin

Kamenev’s Speech in the C.E.C. on the Stockholm Conference [2]

The speech made by Comrade Kamenev on August 6 in the Central
Executive Committee on the Stockholm Conference cannot but meet
with reproof from all Bolsheviks who are faithful to their Party
and principles.

In the very first sentence of his speech, Comrade Kamenev made
a formal statement which gave his whole speech a monstrous
ring. He made the reservation that lie was speaking on his own
behalf, and that “our group has not discussed this issue”.

First of all, since when, in an organised party, do individual
members speak about important issues “on their own behalf”?
Since the group had not discussed the issue, Comrade Kamenev had
no right to speak. This is the first conclusion to be drawn from
his words.

Secondly, what right had Comrade Kamenev to ignore the decision
of the Party Central Committee against participating in the
Stockholm Conference? As long as this decision has not been
rescinded by a congress or by a new decision of the Central
Committee, it remains law for the Party. Had it been rescinded,
Comrade Kamenev could not have kept quiet, could not have spoken
in the present perfect: “We Bolsheviks have so far adopted a
negative attitude to the Stockholm Conference.”

Again the conclusion is that Kamenev had no right to speak and,
moreover, directly violated a Party decision, directly spoke
against the Party, and thwarted its will by not saying a word
about the Central Committee decision, which is binding on him. Yet
the decision Was published in Pravda , even with the additional
remark that the Party representative would withdraw from the
Zimmerwald Conference should it favour participation in the
Stockholm
Conference. [1]

Kamenev gave an incorrect account of the reasons for the
“former” negative attitude of the Bolsheviks towards participation in the Stockholm Conference. He did not say that
social-imperialists were going to attend the conference and that
it would be a disgrace for a revolutionary Social-Democrat to have
any truck with them.

Sad to admit, Starostin, who has often been very much in the
wrong in the past, put the revolutionary Social-Democratic point of
view a thousand times better, more correctly and more fittingly
than Kamenev. To confer with social-imperialists, ministers,
butcher’s aides in Russia would he shameful treachery. There could
then be no talk of internationalism.

Kamenev’s arguments, which actually favour a “change” in
our view on the Stockholm Conference, are ludicrously feeble.

“ It became clear to us,” Kamenev said, “that from that
[??] moment the Stockholm Conference ceased [??] to be a blind
instrument of the imperialist countries.”

That is not true. There is not a single fact to support it, and
Kamenev could advance no serious argument in its favour. If the
Anglo-French social-imperialists refuse to attend, while the
German do attend, can that be regarded as a change in principle??
Is it a change at all from an internationalist point of view? Can
Kamenev really have “forgotten” the decision of our Party
conference (April 29) on the perfectly analogous case of the
Danish social-imperialist?

According to newspaper reports, Kamenev further said, “The
broad revolutionary banner under which the forces of the world
proletariat are mustering is beginning to wave over
Stockholm.”

This is a meaningless declamation in the spirit of Chernov and
Tsereteli. It is a blatant untruth. In actual fact, it is not the
revolutionary banner that is beginning to wave over Stockholm, but
the banner of deals, agreements, amnesty for the social-imperialists, and negotiations among bankers for dividing
up annexed territory.

We cannot tolerate a situation where the party of the internationalists, which is responsible to the whole world for
revolutionary internationalism, compromises itself by winking at
the dirty tricks of the Russian and German social-imperialists, of
the ministers of the bourgeois imperialist government of the
Chernovs, Skobelevs and Co.

We have decided to build a Third International, and we must do
so in face of all difficulties. Not a single step backward to
deals with the social-imperialists and deserters from socialism!

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 24, p. 388.— Ed .

[2]
The question of convening an international socialist conference
in Stockholm arose in April 1917. Borgbjerg, a Danish social-chauvinist, arrived in Petrograd and, on behalf of the joint
committee of the workers’ parties of Denmark, Norway and Sweden,
invited the socialist parties of Russia to attend the “Stockholm socialist
peace conference”. The matter was discussed at a meeting of the

Petrograd Soviet. The Mensheviks and S.R.s accepted the invitation and
decided to take the initiative in calling the conference. On a motion
by Lenin, the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the
Bolshevik Party declared itself emphatically against participation in
the Stockholm conference, a social-chauvinist affair. It exposed
the imperialist nature of the conference and branded Borgbjerg
as an agent of the German imperialists.

On August 6 (19), 1917, at a meeting of the Central Executive
Committee discussing preparations for the Stockholm conference,
Kamenev insisted on participation in the conference. He said the
Bolshevik resolution on the matter should be revised. The
Bolshevik group of the C.E.C. dissociated itself from his
statement.

Simultaneously with the letter “Kamenev’s Speech in the
C.E.C. on the Stockholm Conference”, which he sent to Proletary for
publication, Lenin on August 17 (30) wrote another letter, addressed
to the Bureau of the Central Committee Abroad. With reference
to Kamenev’s statement, Lenin wrote: “I consider Kamenev’s
statement ... the height of stupidity, if not of baseness, and have
already written about this to the Central Committee and for the
press” = (see present edition, Vol. 35, p. 320). On August 16 (29),
the Bolshevik Party’s Central Committee, upon discussing the
issue of the Stockholm conference, reaffirmed the decision not
to attend.

The conference never met.