Zimmerwald movement

The first stirrings of the proletariat against the First World War

Some lessons for the regroupment of revolutionaries

In this series of articles, we will try to understand why, at each major imperialist moment - such as the two world wars - the majority of the anarchist milieu, on the one hand, was unable to defend the interests of our class and allowed itself to be gripped by bourgeois nationalism, whereas, on the other hand, a small minority succeeded in defending proletarian internationalism.

90 years ago, in September 1915, the first international socialist conference was held at Zimmerwald, not much more than a year after the start of the First World War. In discussing it, we are not just reopening a page in the history of the workers’ movement, but reviving workers’ memories about the meaning of the conference...

Here, in this article, we will reply briefly to the idea put forward by the IBRP that the ICC’s supposed ‘idealist’ political method justified such a refusal.

In their reply to our appeal they say:

The IBRP has responded, in the International Communist Review no 13, to our polemical article “The IBRP’s Conception of Decadent Capitalism” which appeared in no. 79 of our International Review.tc "The IBRP has responded, in the International Communist Review no 13, to our polemical article TheIBRP’sConceptionofDecadentCapitalism which appeared in no 79 of our International Review." The IBRP clearly expound their positions. Thus the article is a contribution to the necessary debate that must exist between the organisations of the Communist Left, which have a decisive responsibility in the struggle for the formation of the proletariat’s communist party.

The fantastic violence of the Gulf War has served as a reminder that capitalism means war. The historic responsibility of the working class, as the only force capable of opposing capital, has been highlighted all the more. But to take up this responsibility, the revolutionary class must reappropriate the theoretical and practical experience of its own struggle against war. It must draw from this experience confidence in its revolutionary capacities and the means to fight successfully.