Argonauts of Peace: The Soviet Delegation to Western Europe in the Summer of 1917

“We are Argonauts of peace.” Under this self-description a delegation of Russian socialists sailed to western Europe in the summer of 1917 to rally popular support for a great conference of world socialism to meet at Stockholm for the purpose of reuniting the International and ending the war. Of all the peace flurries of the war none other roused such hopes and fears as the “Stockholm Conference.” Its proposal caused sharp crises in the governments and in the socialist parties of all the belligerent powers. That it never met contributed mightily to the outcome of the Russian Revolution and the Bolsheviks' coming to power.The Stockholm Conference was the child of the Russian Revolution. There had been several abortive efforts during the war to reconvene the International, and now the Russian Revolution encouraged some neutral socialists to form a Dutch-Scandinavian Committee to make another effort. It met with a rebuff from the socialist parties of the belligerent powers. The intervention of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, however, drastically changed the situation. The Soviet took its first, tentative step into international affairs with the issuance on March 14/27 of a general appeal to the peoples of all countries to unite for peace. Soviet backing for an international socialist conference took more concrete form when the “Siberian Zimmerwaldists,” led by Irakli Tsereteli, returned to Petrograd in late March and asserted their control over the Soviet.