Conferences of Socialists of the Entente Countries

Conferences of Socialists of the Entente Countries 

conferences of members of the Socialist and Social Democratic parties of Great Britain, Russia (Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries), France, and Belgium in London during World War I (1914–18). The first conference was held on Feb. 14, 1915, and the second, on Aug. 28, 1917.

The resolutions adopted by the conferences expressed support for the governments of the Entente countries. The Bolsheviks and other socialist internationalists were not invited to the conferences. Nonetheless, following V. I. Lenin’s instructions, M. M. Litvinov (Maksimovich) arrived without an invitation at the first conference to read the Declaration of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, which had been drafted by Lenin. It demanded that the socialists quit the bourgeois governments, called for a vigorous struggle against imperialist policy, and condemned the voting of war credits. Deprived of the floor before he could finish reading the declaration, Litvinov handed the text of it to the Presidium and walked out of the meeting.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V. I. “O Londonskoi konferentsii.” Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 26.
Lenin, V. I. “Po povodu Londonskoi konferentsii.” Ibid.
Korolev, N. E. Lenin i mezhdunarodnoe rabochee dvizhenie, 1914–1918. Moscow, 1968.