beginning to make itself heard within the belligerent countries; men who, like Liebknecht, refused to forsake the international point of view even in wartime.

The "Zimmerwald position" is not so much international as regardless of political nationalism.

"All Socialist parties are to wage revolutionary war against the Government of their country, to refuse all warcredits and war supplies, and, with the battle-cry of 'Down with the War!' to demand' immediate peace without annexations.' Socialists should not, however, be indifferent to political any more than to economic oppression. On the contrary they are urged to "defend themselves by class-warfare against all forms of national oppression, to oppose all exploitation of the weaker nations, and to demand the safeguarding of national minorities and the autonomy of all peoples upon the broadest democratic basis." They challenge the idea that international organization on the basis of capitalism holds out any hope.1

The Zimmerwald manifesto was signed among others by Ledebour of the German Reichstag, the French Socialist Bourderon, and the Russian Lenin, who has been so conspicuous a figure in the Russian Revolution.

Socialist Split in Germany. The highly disciplined Social-Democratic Party of Germany, whose political watchword had been unity, finally in April, 1916, split into two groups on the war and peace issue. The more conservative, with the larger num'ber of Socialist party members in the Reichstag but probably fewer in the party membership, under the lead of Philip Scheidemann became known as the "Majority" or "Patriotic " Socialists. The "Mi

1 See Eduard Bernstein's article of August 19, reprinted in New Europe, September 20, 1917.

nority" or "Independent " Socialists not only had hosts of supporters but for some time controlled Vorwärts, with its immense circulation and prestige. It included men like Haase, Ledebour, and Eduard Bernstein.1

In the United States. In the United States the split came later, but was well marked at the Socialist Party Emergency Convention at St. Louis, April 714, 1917. The American Socialists then found themselves forming into two distinct groups. Their views were expressed in a majority and minority report on the war; but in this case the majority were the radicals, and their report with its uncompromising condemnation of America's entry into the war was adopted by a referendum vote of 21,639 to 2,752.

This action led to the resignation from the party of some of its most prominent members, including William English Walling, Graham Phelps Stokes, Charles Edward Russell, J. G. Ghent, John Spargo, and Upton Sinclair, mostly, it is interesting to notice, not of the working class. The Party was thus left in the hands of the radicals.

The radical position seems to be taken by the official Socialist Party not only in the United States but in Norway, Sweden, Holland and Italy. It also dominates the two English Socialist Parties but not the English Labor Party. Among French Socialists the radicals are a minority, but an important minority controlling the Paris organization and about 45 per cent. of the party.

1 See Bernstein's account of the split under date of April 30, 1916, in the New Republic, September 23, 1916.

International Socialist Bureau. With the outbreak of the war the International Socialist Bureau, established at Brussels, with the Belgian Camille Huysmans as Secretary, ceased for a time to function. It was later, however, transferred to The Hague, where it was under the direction of the Dutch Socialists. In August, 1916, the Executive Committee began to lay plans for a more representative international conference of socialists than had yet convened. In January, 1917, the Executive Committee of the Socialist party of America made an urgent appeal to the Bureau for such a ConferDanes, Norwegians and others also urged

ence.

it.

Invitation to Stockholm. The place finally decided on was Stockholm, and invitations were sent, not only to all the Socialist parties represented in the International Bureau, but to all the minority parties formed since the war.

The conference encountered extreme difficulties. It was originally scheduled for May 15, but the American delegates asked a postponement. By April 26 the Dutch delegates, including Troelstra, President of the International Socialist Bureau, began to arrive. The Belgian, Camille Huysmans, secretary of the Bureau, who as a belligerent could not cross German territory, went by sea as a steward in a freighter, and arrived May 2. Stauning, a Socialist member of the Cabinet of Denmark, Troelstra, Hjalmar Branting, the Swedish Socialist leader (whose pro-Ally sympathies are outspoken), were kept busy denouncing as lies the newspaper charges that the meeting was instigated by Germany.

In Russia, the conference had official backing. As early as March 29, an editorial in the Bulletin