Zanthorus
26th October 2010, 01:33
Until recently I had practically ignored the Mensheviks except insofar as they appeared in texts by Lenin and Trotsky. Lars Lih's talk on the April Theses and the Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry at Communist University 2010 got me thinking though, as he mentioned that the one who kicked off the whole debate on what would be the character of the upcoming revolution, the debate which really split the Mensheviks from the Bolsheviks, was actually started by the Menshevik Martynov, and Lenin's original thinking in this regard is a reply to Martynov's line. So I tried seeking out a few texts by the Mensheviks, but the only two I could find online were Plekhanov and Martov, and only a small number of texts by the two at that (And practically none related to any of the issues, like party organisation and the character of the revolution, which I was interested in). Why this total lack of Menshevik texts do you think? Does anyone know any good sources on texts by the Mensheviks, or any writings on Menshevism in general?