Published 16 (29) August 1917
Editor’s note:
The question of convening an international socialist conference in Stockholm arose in April 1917. The matter was discussed at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet.
The Mensheviks and SRs accepted the invitation and decided to take the initiative in calling the conference. Lenin declared emphatically against participation in the Stockholm conference, a social-chauvinist affair.
On 6 (19) August 1917, at a meeting of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (CEC) discussing preparations for the Stockholm conference, Kamenev insisted on participation in the conference. He said the Bolshevik resolution on the matter should be revised.
Simultaneously with the letter ‘Kamenev’s Speech in the CEC on the Stockholm Conference’, which he sent to the Bolshevik paper Proletary for publication, Lenin on 17 (30) August 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. (Lenin, ‘To the Bureau of the CC Abroad’, 17 (30) August 1917, LCW, Vol. 35, p. 320.)
On 16 (29) August the Bolshevik Party’s Central Committee, upon discussing the issue of the Stockholm conference, reaffirmed the decision not to attend.
The conference never met.
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The speech made by Comrade Kamenev on 6 (19) August 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 he 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 As long as this decision has not been rescinded by a congress or by a new decision of the Central Committee, it remains law for the Party.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, butchers’ aides in Russia would be 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 (29 April (12 May)) 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!
N Lenin
Written 30 August (12 September) 1917
Editor’s note
The Kornilov revolt against the revolution was organised by the bourgeoisie and landowners in August 1917. It was led by the tsarist general Kornilov, then Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Army. The conspirators aimed at capturing Petrograd, smashing the Bolshevik Party, disbanding the Soviets, establishing a military dictatorship, and paving the way for the restoration of the monarchy. Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, first joined in the conspiracy, and then declared Kornilov to be a rebel against the Provisional Government. The revolt began on 25 August (7 September). Kornilov marched the Third Cavalry Corps against Petrograd.
In response to the call of the Bolshevik Party’s CC, the workers of Petrograd and the revolutionary soldiers and sailors rose to fight the rebels. The Petrograd workers promptly formed Red Guard units. Revolutionary committees were set up in several localities. The Kornilov revolt was put down by the workers and peasants under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Under pressure from the people, the Provisional Government had to order the arrest and trial of Kornilov and his accomplices.
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It is possible that these lines will come too late, for events are developing with a rapidity that sometimes makes one’s head spin. I am writing this on Wednesday 30 August (12 September), and the recipients will read it no earlier than Friday 2 (15) September. Still, on chance, I consider it my duty to write the following.
The Kornilov revolt is a most unexpected (unexpected at such a moment and in such a form) and downright unbelievably sharp turn in events.
Like every sharp turn, it calls for a revision and change of tactics. And as with every revision, we must be extra-cautious not to become unprincipled.
It is my conviction that those who become unprincipled are people who (like Volodarsky) slide into defencism or (like other Bolsheviks) into a bloc with the SRs, into supporting the Provisional Government. Their attitude is absolutely wrong and unprincipled. We shall become defencists only after the transfer of power to the proletariat, after a peace offer, after the secret treaties and ties with the banks have been broken – only afterwards. Neither the capture of Riga nor the capture of Petrograd will make us defencists. (I should very much like Volodarsky to read this.) Until then we stand for a proletarian revolution, we are against the war, and we are no defencists.
Even now we must not support Kerensky’s government. This is unprincipled. We may be asked: aren’t we going to fight against Kornilov? Of course we must! But this is not the same thing; there is a ‘dividing line’ here, which is being stepped over by some Bolsheviks who fall into compromise and allow themselves to be carried away by the course of events.
We shall fight, we are fighting against Kornilov, just as Kerensky’s troops do, but we do not support Kerensky. On the contrary, we expose his weakness. There is the difference. It is rather a subtle difference, but it is highly essential and must not be forgotten.
What, then, constitutes our change of tactics after the Kornilov revolt?
We are changing the form of our struggle against Kerensky. Without in the least relaxing our hostility towards him, without taking back a single word said against him, without renouncing the task of overthrowing him, we say that we must take into account the present situation. We shall not overthrow Kerensky right now. We shall approach the task of fighting against him in a different way, namely, we shall point out to the people (who are fighting against Kornilov) Kerensky’s weakness and vacillation. That has been done in the past as well. Now, however, it has become the all-important thing and this constitutes the change.
The change, further, is that the all-important thing now has become the intensification of our campaign for some kind of ‘partial demands’ to be presented to Kerensky: arrest Milyukov, arm the Petrograd workers, summon the Kronstadt, Vyborg and Helsingfors troops to Petrograd, dissolve the Duma, arrest Rodzianko, legalise the transfer of the landed estates to the peasants, introduce workers’ control over grain and factories, etc., etc. We must present these demands not only to Kerensky, and not so much to Kerensky, as to the workers, soldiers and peasants who have been carried away by the course of the struggle against Kornilov. We must keep up their enthusiasm, encourage them to deal with the generals and officers who have declared for Kornilov, urge them to demand the immediate transfer of land to the peasants, suggest to them that it is necessary to arrest Rodzianko and Milyukov, dissolve the Duma, close down Rech and other bourgeois papers and institute investigations against them. The ‘Left’ SRs must be especially urged on in this direction.
It would be wrong to think that we have moved farther away from the task of the proletariat winning power. No. We have come very close to it, not directly, but from the side. At the moment we must campaign not so much directly against Kerensky, as indirectly against him, namely, by demanding a more and more active, truly revolutionary war against Kornilov. The development of this war alone can lead us to power, but we must speak of this as little as possible in our propaganda (remembering very well that even tomorrow events may put power into our hands, and then we shall not relinquish it). It seems to me that this should be passed on in a letter (not in the papers) to the propagandists, to groups of agitators and propagandists, and to Party members in general. We must relentlessly fight against phrases about the defence of the country, about a united front of revolutionary democrats, about supporting the Provisional Government, etc., etc., since they are just empty phrases. We must say: now is the time for action; you SR and Menshevik gentlemen have long since worn those phrases threadbare. Now is the time for action; the war against Kornilov must be conducted in a revolutionary way, by drawing the masses in, by arousing them, by inflaming them (Kerensky is afraid of the masses, afraid of the people). In the war against the Germans, action is required right now; immediate and unconditional peace must be offered on precise terms. If this is done, either a speedy peace can be attained or the war can be turned into a revolutionary war; if not, all the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries remain lackeys of imperialism.
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PS: Having read six issues of Rabochy, after this was written, I must say that our views fully coincide. I heartily welcome the splendid editorials, press review and articles by VM and V. As to Volodarsky’s speech, I have read his letter to the editors, which likewise ‘eliminates’ my reproaches. Once more, best wishes and greetings!
Endnotes
[1] See Lenin, ‘On the Question of Convening an International, So-called Socialist Conference Jointly With the Social-chauvinists’, 10 (23) May 1917, LCW, Vol. 24, p. 388.