| Kiental | |
|---|---|
| — Village — | |
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Kiental
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Canton | Bern |
| District | Frutigen-Niedersimmental |
| Town | Reichenbach im Kandertal |
Kiental is a village in the Bernese Oberland in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Kiental enters the annals of world history due to the Kiental Conference held in 1916.
At the beginning of September 1915 the first anti-war conference of internationalists was held in Zimmerwald at about 50 kilometres (31 mi) from Kiental. Vladimir Lenin formed the Zimmerwald Left group and called this conference the "first step" in the development of an international movement against the war. The next conference was held in Kiental from 24 to 30 April 1916. Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left presented a resolution, but the conference concorded only a "compromise" manifesto as the result of an agreement between various conflicting groups. The manifesto drawn up by the Kiental Conference was an advance on the Zimmerwald Manifesto and helped to crystallize the internationalist elements of whom the Communist Third International was subsequently formed.[1][2]