What was the differnence between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks?

[Fourth Internationalist]

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[subcp]

The split in 1903 was over who could be a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The majority resolution (hence the term 'Bolshevik') called for a member of the party to be a militant as well as in agreement with the platform/programme (i.e. to engage in party work- to be active in the life of the party; spreading propaganda, writing for the press, distributing the press, engaging in debate and polemic, participating in the class struggle), while the minority ('Menshevik') faction was in favor of the typical Social Democratic conception of the Party- a mass party that everyone who had more or less agreement with the platform/programme could join, pay dues, and not actively participate in the party. If I remember correctly it was a small emigre group of the RSDLP that voted on the membership question.

From this developed the idea of the minority party of militant cadre, rather than a mass party with politically immature people who only have vague understanding of the platform, tactics, goals of the party, and take no active part in defending the program, propagating the message of the party, engaging with people from other political backgrounds, all around fighting for and developing the party as an active constituent part.

Edit: Over time numerous other differences evolved between the two factions of the RSDLP; by 1912 the Bolsheviks had established themselves as a separate party completely. During the 1917 revolutions, the Mensheviks stuck to Kautsky stageism; while Lenin and the Bolsheviks pushed for workers going for socialism instead of a national democratic revolution in the service of the local bourgeoisie. Some Mensheviks (the Maximalists, Menshevik-Internationalists) were more or less on the same side as the Bolsheviks (just like the split in the Social Revolutionary Party- the Left SR's lined up with the Bolsheviks; the Right-SR's and rest of the Mensheviks against the 'reds').

[Ostrinski]

Here is a post I made in a past thread on the subject.


There is surprisingly little written about the Mensheviks. Soon I am going to try to get Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.amazon.com/Martov-Political-Biography-Russian-Democrat/dp/0521050731/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=20W7IMPNNNU8L&coliid=I29JXDU2EP7AOH) by Israel Getzler. Ghost Bebel has read it and says it is good. Martov was the leader of the Menshevik-Internationalists, the left wing of the party.

Basically at the turn of the 20th century three political movements had risen in opposition to the monarchy: the quite right wing liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) that declared a moratorium on opposition until victory in war had been won for Russia, Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries which was more of a left populist peasant oriented org, and the Marxist RSDLP.

the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) eventually split into two factions, the radically inclined Bolsheviks and the moderate Mensheviks. The Mensheviks believed in a stagist theory of socialist development, that bourgeois society had to be fully realized before the material conditions would be ripe for socialism in Russia. The productive forces and sizable working class that were to make socialism possible could only be developed by letting capitalism fully blossom in Russia, in their view.

The Bolsheviks viewed differently, they thought that since WWI signified the decay and unsustainability of capitalist society, it would beget a worldwide working class revolution that would come to the aid of backward Russia.

The main important thing to look at is stance on the war. The Mensheviks and SRs were deeply divided on the issue of the war, in contrast to the liberal Kadets who offered unconditional support for the war and the Bolsheviks most of whom were all either defeatists or moderate internationalists. So you had the right wing of the SRs (right SRs) and Mensheviks (Menshevik-Defencists) enthusiastically enlisting to fight Germany as well as taking part in provisional government coalitions, while the Menshevik-Internationalists and left SRs preached peace without indemnities or annexations and condemned participation in the coalition government.

Of course what made the Bolshevik position unique were the policies of "no support for the provisional government" and "all power to the soviets" as well as Lenin's own defeatist view that a military defeat for Russia would be a positive prospect for the revolutionary movement as it would weaken the power of the monarchy.

I don't know very much about the split yet, haven't read much on it so someone else will have to explain that one.
Here is the thread. http://www.revleft.com/vb/mensheviks-t177067/index.html

[ind_com]

The Bolsheviks were in favour of forming a structured party; every member had to be part of some definite organization (committee) of the party, and subjected to party-discipline. The party would be organized through democratic centralism. The Mensheviks opposed this. The Bolsheviks also advocated a worker-peasant alliance, which again the Mensheviks opposed. The two groups tried to take control of Iskra, where more Bolshevik candidates were elected. Due to becoming the majority in these matters, the Bolsheviks got their name, which stands for majority.

[Dave B]

The problem with the Mensheviks is that there is little information on them; the best resource is still the highly partisan and volumous Lenin Archive that requires effort for that alone.

My understanding of the Mensheviks paradoxically, given ‘my’ position, mostly comes from that.

I read that ‘first’.

The Israel Getzler book is a good read but it does focus too much on Martov the interesting human being and what he liked to eat for breakfast etc.

Israel Getzler doesn’t appear to have a good grasp Marxist theory or Martov’s Marxist theory, which is fair enough.

For instance he talks about the Mensheviks ‘loosing’ in terms of the Bolsheviks ‘winning’, state power.

Menshevik theory rejected the idea of ‘winning’.

Their objective was to become the party of extreme opposition.

Something they succeeded in after October 1917.

Lenin I seem to remember baited the Mensheviks/Martynov circa 1905 re what would they do if they won an election to the constituent assembly etc.

Martynov and Martov were ‘the’ pre 1917 left Menshevik anti Bolshevik double act.

Martynov joined the Bolsheviks after 1917 I think; there is quite an impressive rogues gallery of leading Mensheviks turned Stalinist. The leading Stalinist prosecutor who did Bukharin , name beginning with ‘V’, being but one.


I am winging this a bit but doing it as sincerely as my potentially flawed memory can manage at the moment.

Brovkins ‘The Mensheviks After October’ is much better; and has enough of a preamble on the Mensheviks before October.

Burbanks ‘Intelligentsia and Revolution’ is worth a read.

The ‘best’ is the ‘heavy’ Theodore Dan’s History of Bolshevism, I think Kautsky quotes from something similar it seems, which I assume was the German translation of the Russian original.

I am opposed to Dan’s political position(s), but as an academic work it is OK I think and isn’t ‘factually’ much at odds with the ‘understanding’ I gleaned from the Lenin archive.

Abramovitch’s the Soviet Revolution is easy read, although I stopped when it got to the Stalinist stage; which is probably half the book.

Apparently the ‘always’ left Menshevik Abramovitch was blind when he ‘wrote’ that in 1961, can’t remember where I got that from.

There is the issue of the Old pre 1917 Mensheviks and 1917 Mensheviks.

After Febuary 1917 all sorts ‘seemed’ to join the Menshevik Party per se, their policy on ‘open’ membership of the party etc; and that was reflected in a shift to the right re old and political polarisation in the party.

The Old Mensheviks were a part of the minority Zimmerwald anti War section of the ‘Marxist’ movement, and to dissemble and slur them on that issue is an utter disgrace.

There was about 4 different views on ‘defencism’, which excludes by my definition the indefensible social chauvinism (or patriotism), that cut across all political positions.

The ‘Old’ Mensheviks were implacably opposed to anything at all that could be construed or could become armed opposition to the Bolsheviks, many of them joined the red army in the Civil war as self declared Mensheviks.

They were more scared of the whites than the Bolsheviks, with ‘good’ reason.

The ‘right’ SR’s took the standard modern Leninist position of an enemy of an enemy is a friend.

I think one middle ranking Menshevik, his name began with ‘M’ I think, took part in the right SR exiled constituent assembly Samara government before a white-guardist military coup overthrew it.

Without defending it or taking a position on it etc etc the SR armed resistance to the Bolsheviks tended to be in areas outside Bolshevik control which inevitably meant that there were white guardist milling about as well.

The white guardist wanted re-appropriate land back to the aristocracy and thus the SR’s had good ‘economic’ reasons to oppose them.

I think even Martov might have been up for the idea that the post war international revolution would save the Russian ‘socialist revolution’.

You have to be careful though as a lot of this stuff can originate from lying Leninist ‘historians’, I still keep falling for that one myself.

There is another impressive sounding book called ‘The Mensheviks’ edited as a collation of essays by Haimson; I thought it was crap, nothing partisan about it.

There is another one by Andre Liebrich called From The Other Shore; it comes across as the unsubstantiated self aggrandising opinion of an expert although there is some interesting material in it.

Only half way through that one; reading the Harry Potter books at the moment.

[Poison Frog]

I remember reading that Martov was more a man of the people, with experience of actively engaging with factory workers and encouraging genuine worker action, as opposed to Lenin's distanced from workers approach, preferring to concentrate on theory and debate outside of the worker environment.

I could see how those two different approaches would lead eventually to a split of the party, with one group, led by Martov, using a more inclusive concept of membership whereas the group led by Lenin insists on active revolutionary activity by all members. It makes me wonder what would have happened if the Mensheviks had taken control of the country. It's tempting to think the counter-revolution might not have been as severe, but it's difficult to say I suppose.

[Dave B]

The Trials And Executions In Moscow

Eliminating the Opposition Under the New Constitution?
By Theodore Dan

We reprint the following letter sent to the editor of the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN by Theodore Dan, appearing in that publication on September 4, 1936. Dan is the leader of the Russian Menshevik (Social Democratic) party, and a member of the Bureau of the Socialist and Labor International. While we are not in accord with all the political views of Theodore Dan, his letter on the trial and executions in Moscow is, we feel, of signal interest to our readers.—The Editors.




To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.
Sir,—Sixteen men have been shot in Moscow and one, Tomsky, menaced and hounded into suicide. Among the sixteen were Zinovieff, Kameneff, Smirnov, Mratchkovsky, the most noted of the fellow-workers of Lenin, co-founders of the Bolshevik party and the international Communist movement, men who led the Bolshevik revolution and during its heroic period filled the highest posts in the Soviet State and in the party and trade union organizations.



The turn of other Bolshevik leaders no less prominent, men who have held high positions in the State and the army—Radek, Bukharin, Rykoff, Piatokoff, Sokolnikoff, Serebriakoff—has still to come. Everyone who at any time played a leading part in the Bolshevik party is awaiting his fate in fear and horror. Even those nearest to Stalin feel insecure.




Stalin is not content even with having the old party leaders shot; he is having them covered with infamy—and with them the leader who is now out of his reach, Trotsky, the actual organiser of the October rising, of the Red Army, and of the victories in the civil war.



If one is to believe the court and the Soviet press, the men who were the making of the Bolshevik party and of international Communism, and who led the Bolshevik revolution, were nothing but blackguards and thieves, spies and mercenaries of Hitler and the Gestapo!


But did there really exist a terrorist conspiracy against Stalin among the old Bolshevik leaders? It is only too natural that terrorist ideas should simmer in many a hot head in a country in which every opportunity is lacking of organised peaceful opposition to the arbitrary “totalitarian” omnipotence of a single person. But one may well suspect that these hot heads would not be found on the shoulders of old and experienced politicians, who, as Marxists, had for many a year strongly condemned terrorism, if only on account of its futility.



The suspicion becomes a certainty when one examines the case for the prosecution and the reports of the Soviet press on the proceedings. There is not a single document, not a single definite piece of evidence, not a single precise detail of the alleged plans of assassination, not a single attempt to reconcile the conflicting statements made, and only two “witnesses,” both brought into court from prison and both due to appear themselves as defendants in the “second” terrorist trial before the same court! There is nothing but malevolent phrases in general terms and, most incredible of all, the most abject of self-vilification and “confessions” on the part of the accused men, once more without any concrete detail of any sort concerning their “crime”; they fairly enter into competition with the State prosecutor in branding themselves, and actually beg for the death penalty.


But why is Stalin thus getting rid of the old party leaders on the very eve of the enactment of the new Constitution, with all its democratic flavour? Why is he breaking, at this particular moment, the bonds that still unite him with the old traditions and the past history of the Bolshevik party, the international Communist movement, and the Bolshevik revolution, as Napoleon once broke with the Jacobins from among whom he had risen to power?


In spite of all the democratic rights granted to Soviet citizens by the new Constitution Stalin intends to be in a position to make it a serviceable instrument of the consolidation of his personal dictatorship. For there is one right that is still denied the Soviet citizen—the right of free political self-determination and free organisation in general, without which all other rights can easily be rendered valueless. The political monopoly and the leadership in all permitted organisations and all State and municipal bodies, and therewith the disposal of the press, of the right of assembly, and so on, remains in the hands of the Communist party which Stalin has politically emasculated; in other words, it remains constitutionally reserved to Stalin himself.


But he still has to face the danger that certain provisions of the new Constitution, above all, the secrecy of the ballot, may become buttresses for a legal struggle of the working masses for their rights—above all, for the right of free organisation. For that reason he is urgently at work now making “innocuous” all those who are in a position to organise this mass struggle. He is sending Social Democrats wholesale into his concentration camps. And he is hurriedly exterminating the last of the old Bolshevik leaders whose names and whose opposition to him are known to the masses and who could thus become particularly dangerous to him in his peaceful and constitutional struggle for his sole dominance.


If the Soviet Union is to be preserved as the nucleus of peace, and the war peril facing all humanity thus exorcised, all friends of the Russian Revolution and of world peace must stand resolutely on the side of the Russian workers and peasants in order to assist them to defend the possibilities of democratic and Socialistic development of the Soviet Union against the nationalistic and Bonapartist policy of Stalin. The Moscow murders are perhaps one of the final warnings.—

Yours, &c.,
Paris, August 28.
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistappeal/vol02/no09/dan.htm

[Art Vandelay]

There are already some good answers here. While this answer is undoubtedly lacking, in short, the Mensheviks held onto the classical Marxist notion that capitalism had to fully develop before socialism was possible, whereas the Bolsheviks saw socialism on the agenda in 1917 (stating that capitalism had sufficiently developed globally for socialism to emerge).

[Zederbaum]

The Israel Getzler book is a good read but it does focus too much on Martov the interesting human being and what he liked to eat for breakfast etc.

Israel Getzler doesn’t appear to have a good grasp Marxist theory or Martov’s Marxist theory, which is fair enough.


I would have liked a bit more on Martov’s life myself. I thought that book was incredibly dry. Call me shallow, but there are a couple of references in other books to Martov’s romancing the ladies that could have livened it up a bit.

But, yeah, Getzler doesn’t seem to have grasped how Marxism informed Martov’s thinking. Perhaps he suffered a bit from a cold war lens.


It’s a project for an up and coming history PhD student.Martynov joined the Bolsheviks after 1917 I think; there is quite an impressive rogues gallery of leading Mensheviks turned Stalinist. The leading Stalinist prosecutor who did Bukharin

To be fair, if you wanted to be politically active or even get a job you often had to join the Bolsheviks after 1919 or so.


The Old Mensheviks were a part of the minority Zimmerwald anti War section of the ‘Marxist’ movement, and to dissemble and slur them on that issue is an utter disgrace.

True, Lenin mixed up anyone who didn't take his specific line on the war as being in effect in alliance with the chauvinists and for the war. He even moans about Trotsky's failing in this regard. All completely false of course, but it has framed subsequent discussion to a ridiculous extent.

That said, leading figures like Tsereteli and Cheikdze did back the continuation of the war after February 1917. Martov didn’t succeed in turning their policy until after October. I sometimes wonder would he have succeeded earlier if he had returned from exile even a few weeks earlier, just as Lenin’s early arrival was a crucial influence on Bolshevik policy in April 1917.


think even Martov might have been up for the idea that the post war international revolution would save the Russian ‘socialist revolution’.

Perhaps more of a wish than a prediction. By 1920 he was describing the Russian Revolution as akin to a sick patient which needed help. To wit:

“Unconditional and thorough-going support for the Bolsheviks when they defend the Russian Revolution against imperialism and its agents can only be more successful if it is accompanied by frank proletarian criticism of these internal contradictions and weaknesses of the Russian Revolution. If these are not overcome, the revolution will inevitably perish from its internal helplessness.

For the Russian Revolution is sick...it is sick economically….[and] Zinoviev’s article...will help you realise how sick it is politically.

The Russian Revolution is sick and cannot be cured by its own means. It needs the salutary influence of the organised socialist proletariat. Only under this influence will the Russian proletariat find an exit from the blind alley in which it finds itself."

It's a pity there is so little of the Menshevik and Left SR writings available nowadays.

[Binh]

Lenin's "Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution" outlines their strategic differences over common ends. They never formed separate parties -- "the Bolshevik Party" never existed, a myth Lars Lih has laid to rest.

[l'Enfermé]

^Right. The party that captured power in October 1917 was still called the RSDLP. They changed the name to RCP(b) in March 1918

Anyway, you don't need to ask people to tell you what the difference between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks were. All this information is available on the MIA. Start with the stenographic record of the second RSDLP Congress of 1903, where the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks split. http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/rsdlp/1903/index.htm

[subcp]

Whats Lih's basis for saying so? A lot of sources document a definitive split in 1912, resulting in separate organizations (the RSDLP(b)) with different modes of operation.

[Czesio]

Whats Lih's basis for saying so? A lot of sources document a definitive split in 1912, resulting in separate organizations (the RSDLP(b)) with different modes of operation.

You may find his texts about that, like "A faction is not a party" (in Weekly Worker 912) or "How Lenin's party became (Bolshevik)" (in Weekly Worker 914) on CPGB website. Unfortunatelly I cannot post a links to them.