The Siberian Zimmerwaldists were a political grouping which emerged in 1915 in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

amongst political exiles in

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and , ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 587,891 Irkutsk is the List of cities and towns in Russ ...

. The Siberian Zimmerwaldists got their name from the

Zimmerwald Conference The Zimmerwald Conference, held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 to 8, 1915, was the first of three international conferences convened by anti-militarist socialists in response to the outbreak of World War I and the resulting virtu ...

, though they existed as a cohesive group prior to that conference, which occurred in September 1915. The exact origins of the name are unclear, though Rex A. Wade suggests it may have been created by Nikolai Sukhanov. They consisted of two principal currents:

social democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

—whether

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

, or unaligned—and Internationalist

Socialist Revolutionaries The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR; ,, ) was a major socialist political party in the late Russian Empire, during both phases of the Russian Revolution, and in early Soviet Russia. The party members were known as Esers (). The SRs were agr ...

grouped around Avram Gots.

Irakli Tsereteli Irakli Tsereteli, ' , ' ( – 20 May 1959) was a Georgian politician and a leading spokesman of the Social Democratic Party of Georgia and later Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) during the era of the Russian Revolutions. Tseretel ...

, a Georgian Social Democrat exiled in Siberia, took up a leading role within the movement, editing the journal produced by the group and serving as a mentor for several of the members. At its heart Siberian Zimmerwaldism was based on the ideals of the branch of socialists who were opposed to the war and wanted to restore the Second International, which had fractured upon the outbreak of the war as the various socialist groups differed on policy towards the war: many had abandoned the International in favour of defence of their countries (the so-called "Majority"), while the "Minority" was split between the extreme left (led by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

), which advocated class warfare, and the more mainstream view that sought to use the International; as such they were known as the "Internationalists", to which the Siberian Zimmerwaldists were related.

Notes

Bibliography

* * * 1915 establishments in the Russian Empire Defunct organizations based in Russia Organizations established in 1915 Organizations of the Russian Revolution Organizations with year of disestablishment missing Socialist organizations in Russia {{refend