Timeline¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a chronological spine for the period 1907–1917, mapping the trajectory of the Second International from its principled anti-war stance to its catastrophic collapse, and the subsequent revolutionary upsurge in Russia. The core narrative thrust is the sharp contradiction between the International’s formal resolutions and the actual behaviour of its largest party, the German SPD, when tested by imperialist war.
The timeline records a hardening of anti-war positions at successive congresses. At Stuttgart in 1907, the Lenin and Luxemburg amendment on attitudes toward war was passed. Copenhagen in 1910 firmed up these proposals. The Basel Congress of November 1912, convened during the First Balkan War, was the high-water mark: it reinforced a “war on war” stance and explicitly called on socialists to use the conditions created by war to “hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule”. This was not pacifist sentiment but a revolutionary perspective—war was to be turned into civil war.
The collapse came on 4 August 1914, when the German SPD voted for war credits, triggering the disintegration of the Second International. The chapter implicitly argues against the notion that this was a simple betrayal; it was the logical outcome of the SPD’s prior reformist degeneration. The evidence is the stark contrast between Basel’s revolutionary rhetoric and the SPD’s actual class collaboration.
The remainder of the timeline charts the political and organisational response to this betrayal. The Zimmerwald Conference (September 1915) and the Kienthal Conference (April 1916) represent the attempt by anti-war socialists, led by Lenin, to rebuild an internationalist pole. The chapter then pivots to Russia: the February Revolution (March 1917), Lenin’s return and the April Theses, the defeat of Kornilov’s coup, and finally the October Revolution (November 1917). The inclusion of the Decree on Peace, drafted by Lenin immediately after the seizure of power, closes the arc: the revolutionary party that had consistently opposed the war from 1914 now had the state power to act on its principles. The polemical target throughout is reformism and social-patriotism—the argument that the Second International’s collapse was not an accident but the necessary precondition for the emergence of a genuinely revolutionary International.