Everything about Menshevik totally explained
A
Menshevik (Minority) () was a member of a faction of the
Russian
revolutionary movement that emerged in 1903 after a dispute between
Vladimir Lenin and
Julius Martov, both members of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, at the
Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues of party organization. Martov's supporters, who were eventually left in the minority at congress, came to be called "Mensheviks", derived from the Russian word
меньшинство (
men'shinstvo, "minority"), whereas Lenin's adherents were known as "
Bolsheviks", from
bol'shinstvo ("majority"). The split proved to be long-standing and had to do both with pragmatic issues based in history such as the failed
revolution of 1905, and theoretical issues of class leadership, class alliances, and
bourgeois democracy. While both factions believed that a bourgeois democratic revolution was necessary, the Mensheviks generally tended to be more
moderate and were more positive towards the "mainstream"
liberal opposition. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, preferred collaboration with other
radicals and with the
peasantry.
After several attempts at reunification and new splits, with many figures changing sides between the two groups, the struggle between them reached a new peak in the months before and after the
October Revolution, as the Mensheviks were aligned with the
Provisional Government, while the Bolsheviks were seeking to topple it. After the Revolution, with the Bolsheviks in power, the Mensheviks were left in an ambiguous position and were divided between supporting the White and the Red side in the
Civil War. The party was eventually outlawed by the Soviets in 1921; some of its former members (including most leaders) emigrated and others joined the
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), as it had been called since 1918.
The split
At the
2nd Congress of the RSDLP in August 1903, Lenin and Martov disagreed, first about which persons should be in the editorial committee of the party newspaper
Iskra, and then about the definition of a "party member" in the future party statute. While the difference in the definitions was very small, with Lenin's being slightly more exclusive (Lenin's formulation required the party member to be a member of one of the party's organizations, whereas Martov's only stated that he should work
under the guidance of a party organization), it was indicative of what became an essential difference between the philosophies of the two emerging factions: Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters, whereas Martov believed it was better to have a large party of activists with broad representation. Martov's proposal was accepted by the majority of the delegates. After several delegates, including representatives of the
Jewish Bund, stormed out of the Congress in protest for unrelated reasons, Lenin's supporters won a slight majority, which was reflected in the composition of the
Central Committee and the other central Party organs elected at the Congress. That was also the reason for the above-mentioned names of the factions. Despite the outcome of the congress, the following years saw the Mensheviks gathering considerable support among regular
Social Democrats and effectively building up a parallel party organization.
After the split
1903–17
In 1906, at the
4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, a reunification was formally achieved. In contrast to the Second Congress, the Mensheviks were in the majority from start to finish; yet, Martov's definition of a party member, which had prevailed at the First Congress, was replaced by Lenin's. On the other hand, numerous disagreements regarding alliances and strategy emerged. The two factions kept their separate structures and continued to glide apart.
Just as before, both factions believed that Russia wasn't developed to a point at which socialism was possible and believed that the revolution for which they fought to overthrow the
Tsarist regime would be a bourgeois democratic revolution. Both believed that the
working class had to contribute to this revolution. However, after 1905, the Mensheviks were more inclined towards collaboration with liberal bourgeois parties such as the
Constitutional Democrats, because these would be the "natural" leaders of a bourgeois revolution; in contrast, the Bolsheviks didn't believe that the Constitutional Democrats were capable of sufficiently radical struggle and tended to advocate alliances with peasant representatives and other radical
socialist parties such as the
Socialist Revolutionaries. In the event of a revolution, this was meant to lead to a
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, which would carry the bourgeois revolution to the end. Later, the Mensheviks came to use predominantly legal methods and trade union work, while the Bolsheviks had a more favourable stance towards armed insurrection.
Many Mensheviks left the party after the defeat of 1905 and joined more legal opposition organisations. After a while, Lenin's patience wore out with their compromising and in 1908 he called these Mensheviks "liquidationists". Eventually, the Bolsheviks declared their faction to be the party in 1912 with the aid of a handful of Mensheviks; thus, the split was official again. The Menshevik faction split further in 1914 at the beginning of
World War I. Most Mensheviks opposed the war, but a vocal
right-wing minority supported it in terms of "national defense".
1917 Revolution
After the overthrow of the
Romanov dynasty by the
February Revolution in 1917, the Menshevik leadership led by
Irakli Tsereteli demanded that the government pursue a "fair peace without
annexations", but in the meantime supported the war effort under the slogan of "defense of the revolution". Along with the other major Russian socialist party, the
Socialist Revolutionaries (эсеры), the Mensheviks led the emerging network of
Soviets, notably the
Petrograd Soviet in the capital, throughout most of 1917.
With the collapse of the
monarchy, many social democrats viewed previous tactical differences between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks as a thing of the past and a number of local party organizations were merged. When Bolshevik leaders
Lev Kamenev,
Joseph Stalin and
Matvei Muranov returned to Petrograd from
Siberian exile in early March 1917 and assumed the leadership of the Bolshevik party, they began exploring the idea of a complete re-unification of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at the national level, which Menshevik leaders were willing to consider. However, Lenin and his deputy
Grigory Zinoviev returned to Russia from their
Swiss exile on April 3, 1917 and re-asserted control of the Bolshevik party by late April 1917, taking it in a more radical, anti-war direction. They called for an immediate revolution and the transfer of all power to the
Soviets, which made any re-unification impossible.
In March–April 1917 the Menshevik leadership conditionally supported the newly formed liberal
Russian Provisional Government. After the collapse of the first Provisional Government on May 2, 1917 over the issue of annexations, Tsereteli convinced the Mensheviks to strengthen the government for the sake of "saving the revolution" and enter a socialist-liberal coalition with Socialist Revolutionaries and liberal Constitutional Democrats, which they did on May 4, 1917 (Old Style). With Martov's return from European exile in early May, the
left wing of the party challenged the party's majority led by Tsereteli at the first post-revolutionary party conference on May 9, but the Right wing prevailed 44–11. From that point on, the Mensheviks had at least one representative in the Provisional Government until it was overthrown by the Bolsheviks during the
October Revolution of 1917.
With the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks clearly diverging, Russian Mensheviks and non-factional social democrats returning from European and American exile in spring-summer of 1917 were forced to take sides. Some re-joined the Mensheviks. Some, like
Alexandra Kollontai, joined the Bolsheviks directly. A significant number, including
Leon Trotsky and
Adolf Joffe, joined the non-factional
Petrograd-based anti-war group called
Mezhraiontsy, which merged with the Bolsheviks in August 1917. A small but influential group of social democrats associated with
Maxim Gorky's newspaper
Novaya Zhizn (
New Life) refused to join either party.
Georgian Mensheviks
The
Democratic Republic of Georgia was a
stronghold of the Mensheviks. In
parliamentary elections held on
February 14,
1919 they won 81.5 percent of the votes. The Menshevik leader
Noe Zhordania became
Prime minister.
Prominent members of
Georgian Menshevik Party were
Noe Ramishvili,
Evgeni Gegechkori,
Akaki Chkhenkeli,
Nikolay Chkheidze and Alexandre Lomtatidze. After the occupation of GDR by the Bolsheviks in 1921, many Georgian Mensheviks led by Zhordania fled to
Leuville-sur-Orge,
France where they set up, in a small castle, the
Government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in Exile. In 1930 Ramishvili was assassinated by a Soviet spy in
Paris.
After the 1917 Revolution
This split in the party crippled the Mensheviks' popularity, and they received less than 3% of the vote during the
Russian Constituent Assembly election in November 1917 compared to the Bolsheviks' 25 percent and the Socialist Revolutionaries' 57 percent. The right wing of the Menshevik party supported right-wing actions against the Bolsheviks, while the left wing, the majority of the Mensheviks at that point, supported the Left in the ensuing
Russian Civil War. However, Martov's leftist Menshevik faction refused to break with the right wing of the party with the result that their press was sometimes banned and only intermittently available.
Menshevism was finally made illegal after the
Kronstadt Uprising of 1921. A number of prominent Mensheviks emigrated thereafter. Martov who was suffering from ill health at this time went to
Germany, where he died in 1923. However, before his death he established the paper
Socialist Messenger. The
Socialist Messenger would move along with the Menshevik centre from
Berlin to
Paris in 1933 and then in 1939 to
New York City, where it was to be published up until the early 1970s.
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