Bern International Socialist Conference of Youth of 1915

Bern International Socialist Conference of Youth of 1915 

held Apr. 4–6, 1915, in Bern, Switzerland, devoted to the question of the relationship of youth to the war. Participating in the conference were representatives of socialist youth organizations from Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and Sweden.

Attempting to utilize the conference for the purpose of solidifying the ranks of internationalists, the representatives from the RSDLP Central Committee (I. F. Armand, N. K. Krupskaia, and others) presented a draft resolution which V. I. Lenin had helped to write and which pointed to revolutionary methods of struggle against the imperialist war and social chauvinism. However the majority of participants at the conference held centrist positions, and the Bolshevik resolution was not supported. The conference resolution, which correctly characterized the war as imperialist and called for peace to be concluded immediately, nevertheless passed over in silence the question of the need to break with social chauvinism and to build a truly revolutionary international youth association. It also avoided the question of revolutionary methods for struggling against the imperialist war. The conference elected an International Youth Secretariat and adopted a resolution for holding an International Youth Day annually.