At the Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, two of SDLP's leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists. Julius Martov based his ideas on the socialist parties that existed in other European countries such as the British Labour Party. Lenin argued that the situation was different in Russia as it was illegal to form socialist political parties under the Tsar's autocratic government. At the end of the debate Martov won the vote 28-23 . Vladimir Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Gregory Zinoviev,
Anatoli Lunacharsky,
Joseph Stalin,
Mikhail Lashevich,
Nadezhda Krupskaya,
Mikhail Frunze,
Alexei Rykov,
Yakov Sverdlov,
Lev Kamenev,
Maxim Litvinov,
Vladimir Antonov,
Felix Dzerzhinsky,
Gregory Ordzhonikidze and
Alexander Bogdanov
joined the Bolsheviks.
Whereas
George Plekhanov,
Pavel Axelrod,
Leon Trotsky,
Lev Deich,
Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko,
Boris Nicolaevsky,
David Dallin,
Vera Zasulich,
Irakli Tsereteli,
Moisei Uritsky,
Noi Zhordania and
Fedor Dan
supported
Julius Martov.
The SDLP journal, Iskra remained under the control of the Mensheviks so Vladimir Lenin, with the help of Anatoli Lunacharsky, Alexander Bogdanov, Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev, established a Bolshevik newspaper, Vperyod. The Mensheviks played a leading role in the 1905 Revolution and were particularly active in the soviets and the emerging trade union movement.
