Irakli Tsereteli and Siberian Zimmerwaldism

Abstract

OfNLY, there is one question: is not ~ this 'Siberian' Zimmerwaldism > something special?l This question posed by Nikolai Sukhanov in his famous memoirs of the Russian Revolution never has been adequately answered. Sukhanov referred to the small group of revolutionaries who returned from Siberian exile in 1917 to impose their view of the war and Russia's role in it upon both the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and then-for a time-upon the provisional government. The failure of the foreignpolicy program they built upon this outlook was one of the main causes of the failure of the moderate socialists in 1917 and of the victory of the Bolsheviks. This essay is an attempt to trace the development of this special Zimmerwaldism. The Siberian Zimmerwaldists2 were a small group of Russian socialists whom the vagaries of the tsarist exile system brought together at Irkutsk, Siberia, in late 1914 and early 1915. Most prominent among them were Irakli G. Tsereteli, a Menshevik who had been spokesman for the Social Democratic