Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

[Colombia]

Can someone just sum up the differences between these two parties?

[Redmau5]

The Bolsheviks believed that a small group of highly disciplined, professional revolutionaries should be the leaders of the working-class and Revolution. Although they had many members, the Central Committee were the only one's who make decisions.

The Mensheviks weren't as Revolutionary as the Bolsheviks, choosing instead to work with the liberals in the Provisional government. They were orthodox Marxists, believing Russia had to go through a period of capitalism before Socialist Revolution would be attainable. They were also more democratic than the Bolsheviks, letting their members vote on Party policy.

[bolshevik butcher]

Well that's a bit unfair. The mensheviks supported a system in which only the rich were aloud to vote. The bolsheviks supported the soviets. Surley that shows who was mroe democratic?

[Clarksist]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 7 2005, 07:12 PM
Well that's a bit unfair. The mensheviks supported a system in which only the rich were aloud to vote. The bolsheviks supported the soviets. Surley that shows who was mroe democratic?
Plutocracy versus a working dictatorship.

I'll opt out of both.

The Mensheviks were, however, extreme reformists. Bolsheviks were extreme revolutionaries. That's how I seperate them.

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 7 2005, 07:12 PM
Well that's a bit unfair. The mensheviks supported a system in which only the rich were aloud to vote. The bolsheviks supported the soviets. Surley that shows who was mroe democratic?
Where did you hear that? The Mensheviks were Marxists, and it could be argued they held their Marxist principles higher than the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks believed Russia was too backward for socialist revolution, that there had to period of bourgeois democracy and industrialisation before revolution. After all, if there was no industrialisation, there wouldn't be a large enough proletariat. The Bolsheviks supported the Soviets, but once they had taken power the Soviets became pointless as there were no other parties standing in Soviet electiosn.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik

[...]

At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, held in Belgium in 1903, Lenin put forward his ideas on the question of organizing the party on a democratic centralist model as a small party of "professional revolutionaries" who actively worked to overthrow the Tsarist government. (Lenin's arguments are expressed in the essay One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.) His opponents, notably Julius Martov, favored a more open membership policy, where anyone in agreement with the party's goals could join, even if they did not actively work for revolution. Lenin lost, by a vote of 28 to 23, and the party split over the issue. The faction supporting Lenin became the Bolsheviks, and those who preferred Martov's model became the Mensheviks.

Lenin's faction took the name Bolshevik (derived from the Russian word bol'she (больше) meaning "more" or "bigger") despite losing the vote and actually being the numerically smaller faction. It can be explained from the fact that they had won a vote at the congress on the composition of the Iskra editorial board. Though the term Bolshevik originated due to a procedural vote, it acquired an additional connotation as Lenin's faction "wanted more", i.e. were more radical than Mensheviks, who "wanted less". This was the way the terms were generally understood abroad. In English, for instance, the press for a number of years translated "Bolsheviks" as "Maximalists" and "Mensheviks" as "Minimalists".

[marxist_socialist_aussie]

the mensheviks, in manyw ays, were much more 'by the book' marxists who followed what Marx said and how he said it would be achieved. They were also much more patient, feeling revolution should only be atempted when the time was right, which at that time, they believed it wasn't. As is said above, Bolsheviks argued very differently and believed a revolution could be forced which obviously, it was but the results were far from what was imagined.

[Rockfan]

why didnt the books i read jusr say that, I understand noe, Thanks :D

[Anarcho-Communist]

Try reading:

Mensheviks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensheviks

Bolsheviks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks

[Hiero]

and it could be argued they held their Marxist principles higher than the Bolsheviks.

Not really. It could be argued they were more dogmatic, and the Boleshiviks built on for a modern Marxism in a era of imperialism.

[Clarksist]

Originally posted by Anarcho-[email protected] 12 2005, 06:15 AM
Try reading:

Mensheviks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensheviks

Bolsheviks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks
Why doesn't everyone just goto Wiki in the first place? Then they can ask questions with more depth.

As for the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and who was more "Marxist", I would have to go with the Bolsheviks only because they actually went with class war.

[viva le revolution]

The Bolsheviks were more revolutionary, feeling that marxism must keep abreast with the times, the mensheviks were more by the book marxists, which is why Trotsky joined the bolsheviks.

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 11:01 PM
Why doesn't everyone just goto Wiki in the first place?
Because it's a forum and people like to debate and discuss things.

[Holocaustpulp]

The main difference between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was essentially the party structure, which is what caused the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in the decade of 1900-1910 into the two factions.

Lenin outlined his ideas of the party in "What is to be Done?" written in 1902. Concerning party structure, Lenin argued that centralization of a revolutionary party is needed to better and more efficiently organize the masses and anti-Tsarist/anti-capitalist events (mainly strikes), and to effectively avoid Tsarist agents from infiltrating and exploiting the party. In paraphrasing Lenin, we derive his conclusion: Specialization necessarily presupposes centralization, yet inevitably calls for it." Of course, the Bolsheviks still supported the workers' involvement in what was in Russia the hindered equivalent to unions (he later called for "all power to the soviets," despite party affiliation) and reformist organizations, and saw a loose organization of the general people as a perk in battling the police. The leaders of the party found their trust in the pary's general members, and could be recalled.

The Mensheviks on the other hand were more critical of "doctrinaire" Marxism. They called for more democratic conditions and a more open party, one of which could be easily manipulated and bogged down by bureacucracy. Such conditions afforded the Mensheviks a more reformist stance on the issue of Russia.

In a word, the Bolsheviks were revolutionaries, and the Mensheviks were pseudo-socialists.

- Holocaustpulp

[Holocaustpulp]

I should also note that, in this argument, revolutionary sources (i.e., sources from the working and peasant class and their representatives) should be used. I, in the past, faulted on this objective and ended believing bourgeois literature that obscured Russian history and painted it up as a bad thing. Bourgeois influence only serves to open pathways for distortions and lies.

- HP