toward the right benches:

"You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait
for a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon
postponing peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian
army, until Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the
different imperialist groups.... You are trying to impose upon the
Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the
bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay....
You will see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom
you call German agents, of those Zimmerwaldists [*] who in all the
[* Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation
in the International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,
in 1915]
lands have prepared the awakening of the conscience of the
democratic masses...."

Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the
pressure of the rising dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility
divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.

This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the
Allied Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of
foreign policy....

Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May,
1917, the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and