International Socialist Women's Conferences

Though conference addressed a number of issues including social legislation, education, public health and the Czar's attempt to erode the sovereignty of Finland, its most animated discussions were on women's suffrage.

A debate evolved between the English delegates who favored working with "bourgeois" feminists in order to secure piecemeal expansion of the franchise and the Germans and the "lefts" who felt it was best to merge the proletarian woman's movement into a larger working-class struggle to gain universal suffrage.

Russia had two delegations: two from the Mensheviks – Angelica Balabanoff and Irina Izolskaia; and four Bolsheviks - Inessa Armand, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Elena Rozmirovich and Zlata Lilina.

Communications were received from Therese Schlesinger of Austria, Alexandra Kollontai from Norway, and two Belgian delegates who were prevented from attending.

[9] The Bolsheviks introduced a draft resolution that the Bolsheviks put forward advocated turning the imperialist war into a civil war, carrying out "revolutionary activity among the masses", a complete break and denunciation of the pro-war socialists and a Third International.

The Bolsheviks suggested joint revolutionary action between the workers of all countries, while the English put forward a resolution endorsing the International Women's Congress at the Hague.

Written reports and letters were received from France, Britain, the United States and Finland, and oral reports were delivered on the situation of Socialist women in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Russia, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland.

The conference ended with a renewed pledge for the women of the socialist movement to draw closer on the basis of the Berne and Zimmerwald resolutions.

[13] No written list of attendees was published, but the following female delegates were known to have attended the Third Zimmerwald Conference: Therese Schlesinger, Rosa Bloch, Kathe Dunker, Elisabeth Luzzatto, Angelica Balabanoff[14]