Within the belligerent countries the ISC was able to have the full documents published in Italy, Russia, France, England and Bulgaria but only summaries in Austria and Germany.
However, at the Congress of the Swiss Socialist Democratic Party at Aarau November 20–21, the delegates declared their adherence to the ISC and granted the organization 300 francs.
[3] On September 27, 1915, ISC sent out a confidential circular (which was nevertheless leaked to the unfriendly press) suggesting that the adhering groups appoint up to three extra delegates to join the Commissioners as part of an Enlarged Committee.
Forty three delegates met at this conference, representing Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, Portugal and Great Britain.
The ISC publicly announced that the Conference was going to be held in the Netherlands to avoid passport denial or secret police surveillance, but a number of delegates were prevented from attending anyway.
One group, headed by Martov, advocated participation, arguing that no opportunity should be missed to expose to the workers the "cause of the failure" of the International Socialist Bureau.
The meeting ultimately became deadlocked, with five votes for each proposition, so it was decided that each party should make up its own mind whether to attend, but they should uphold the Zimmerwald resolutions if they did.
[9] The ISC Enlarged Committee attempted to meet again at Olten on February 1, 1917 to consider a proposed Paris conference of Entente socialist parties.
[12] A train full of Russia exiles arrived from Switzerland in mid-May, carrying fellow ISC member and interpreter Angelica Balabanoff, as well as Martov, Riazanov, Pavel Axelrod and a number of other Russian socialist luminaries.
Before he got to the Russian border he learned that the foreign minister who denied him a visa, Pavel Milyukov had resigned, and three more socialists had entered the Provisional Government.
According to Balabanoff's notes this was attended by Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev of the Bolsheviks; Bobrov of the Social Revolutionaries; Grigorii Bienstock, Martov, Martynov, and Larin of the Mensheviks; Raphael Abramovitch of the Bund; Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Urinovich and Riazanov of the Inter-District Committee; Lapinski of the Polish Socialist Party - Left and Christian Rakovsky of the Romanian Social Democrats.
According to her notes Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Riazanov and herself were opposed to participation in the purposed Stockholm conference, while Rakovsky, Grimm, Bobrov and Martynov were for attending.
While most at the meeting who gave an opinion were against socialist participation in the Provisional Government, there was also a broad consensus that the ISC did not have the authority to make such a statement without first consulting its affiliates.
[14] While in Petrograd both Balabanoff and Grimm were vigorously criticized in the press as being German agents working for a separate peace between Germany and Allied countries.
On May 26/27 he sent a telegram to Swiss Federal Councilor Arthur Hoffmann stating that there was a general desire for peace in Russia and that the only thing that could hinder it was a German offensive.
The membership of this commission consisted of Carl Lindhagen and Zeth Höglund of Sweden; Kirkov of Bulgaria; Karl Radek of Poland; Christian Rakovsky of Romania; Orlovsky of Russia; and Karl Moor of Switzerland[18] The commission found that Grimm had made the telegraphic exchange without the knowledge of Balabanoff or any of the other Zimmerwaldists in Petrograd, and, while condemning him for practicing a kind of secret diplomacy, absolved him of attempting to reach a separate peace with Germany.
Present at this meeting were Linstrom, Lindhagen and Hoglund for Sweden; Olausen for Norway; Otto Lang for Switzerland; Karl Kautsky, Hugo Haase, Luise Zietz, and Oskar Cohn for Germany; Sirola for Finland; Orlovsky, Radek and Hanecki for the Bolsheviks; Boris Reinstein for the US Socialist Labor Party; Kirkov for Bulgaria and Balabanoff in her capacity as secretary of the ISC.
[23] At this meeting Balabanoff, Orlavsky and Reinstien stated their objections to the invitation of the majority Socialist parties to the proposed Stockholm conference.
Participants reported included Radek, Alexandra Kollontai, Orowski, Martinov and Jermanski of Russia, "Mohr of Switzerland", Sirola of Finland, Storm and Kilborn of Sweden.
The participants at this meeting included Lindhagen, Lindstorm, and Otto Strom of Sweden; Osip Arkadievich Ermanski of the Menshiviks; Yrjo Sirola of Finland; J. Eads How of the United States; Ledebour of Germany; and Radek and Hanecki "representing both the Bolsheviks and the Social Democracy of Poland and Lithuania"[29] Finally, the Third Zimmerwald Conference met at Stockholm on September 5–12, 1917.
It had a smaller number of participants than any of the previous Zimmerwaldist Conferences, with only about thirty delegates from Russia, Germany, Poland, Finland, Rumania, Switzerland, the United States, Sweden and Norway, as well as the members of the ISC itself.
[30] By this point the question of attending the proposed general Stockholm Conference had been rendered practically moot because of the inability of the organizers to realize the project.
[31] The question was discussed anyway because some delegates felt that the issues raised by the movement for the Stockholm Congress were of a "fundamental" nature and the proletarians needed to be educated as to why the proposal foundered.
Meanwhile, on September 28, Louise Zeitz of the German Independent Socialists arrived in Stockholm and the ISC met to discuss her request that the publication of the manifesto be postponed further.
It also published a pamphlet of Bukharin, Thesen über der sozialistische Revolution und die Aufgaben des Proletariats während seiner Diktatur in Russland.
The final issue of Nachrichten was published on September 1, 1918 and contained an appeal to the workers in German, French, Swedish, Italian and English.