V. I.

Lenin

The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

APRIL 24–29, 1917

20

Speech on the Situation within the International and the Tasks of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

April 29 (May 12)

Comrade Zinoviev admitted that our visit to Stockholm would be the last one, and
that we would only be there for the purpose of information. [1]

When Grimm invited us to the conference, I refused to go,
because I realised that it would be useless to talk to people
who stood for social-chauvinism .
We say: “No participation with social-chauvinists.” We come and
address ourselves to the Zimmerwald Left . Grimm had a moral and formal right to draw up today’s
resolution. His right was based on Kautsky in Germany, on Longuet
in France. This is how the matter stands officially: Grimm has
announced, “We will disband our bureau, as soon as Huysmans
organises a bureau.” When we said that such a solution was not
acceptable to Zimmerwald, he agreed, but said “this is the
opinion of the majority”—and that was true.

As to our visit. “We shall get information, we shall get in
touch with the Zimmerwald Left,” it is claimed. There is very
little hope of our winning over anybody else. Let us have no
illusions; first, the visit will not take place; second, if it
does, it will be our last; third, we cannot, for technical
reasons, win over the elements that wish to break with the
social-chauvinists. But let Comrade Nogin make the first and
Comrade Zinoviev the last visit to Stockholm. As for me, I
express the very legitimate wish that this “last-visit” attempt
should be made as quickly and successfully as possible.

| A brief report published May 13 (2), 1917 in Pravda No. 46 | Published according to the typewritten copy of the Minutes |
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| First published in full in 1925 in the book The Petrograd City and the All-Russia Conferences of the R.S.D.L.P.(B) , April 1917 | |

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Notes:
[1]
This refers to participation in the proposed third conference of the
internationalist socialists due to beheld in Stockholm on May 18,
1917.
It was held in August 1917. By decision of the April Conference, the Bolsheviks
attended it. Lenin disagreed with this decision and voted
against the resolution on the situation in the International and
the tasks of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.).

Lenin considered attendance of the Bolsheviks at this conference possible
only for purposes of information.

He wrote about this in his pamphlet The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution (see p. 82 of this volume). In the postscript
to the pamphlet, written in May 1917, Lenin calls this decision of
the conference a mistake (see pp. 89–90 of this volume).