The Mensheviks, On the Seizure of Power and Participation in a Provisional Government

The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, held in exile in London in 1905, saw a decisive split between factions led by Iuri Martov and Vladimir Lenin. Stressing the practical problems of conspiracy, Lenin argued for a exclusive, vanguard party of dedicated revolutionaries that would lead a large fringe of non-party activists and sympathizers. He pointed out that it was illegal to form political parties in Russia and that organizing would have to take place under the noses of the Tsarist secret police. Martov disagreed, arguing for an inclusive party containing a large number of activists. He wanted to emulate the structure and success of socialist parties elsewhere in Europe, especially the British Labour Party. Martov won the showdown delegate vote, 28-23, after which the RSDLP splintered. Although Lenin's supporters were numerically a minority, through a rhetorical coup they became known as the Bolsheviks ("majority"). Martov's faction thus became the Mensheviks ("minority").

The split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks involved more than organizational strategy. Whereas Lenin and his supporters sought to foment an immediate revolution in the name of the proletariat, Martov and his allies argued that Russia needed to pass through its capitalist stage of development (and develop a proletariat) before a proletarian revolution could succeed. This April, 1905 manifesto illustrates the fundamental pessimism of the Menshevik platform. It outlines Martov's thesis that the party should not participate in the new, bourgeois government widely expected as a result of the 1905 Revolution. Instead, it argues that Mensheviks should should serve as a millitant opposition while awaiting the conditions that would facilitate an eventual proletarian uprising.

1. What possible outcomes of the 1905 unrest do the Mensheviks anticipate?

2. What post-revolutionary role(s) do the Mensheviks assign themselves?

3. What is the one case in which Mensheviks are willing to take power immediately?

4. Do you think the Mensheviks seriously contemplated gaining power in Russia in the near future? Why or why not?

April 1905.

The decisive victory of the revolution over Tsarism may be marked either by the establishment of a provisional government - issuing from the victorious popular uprising - or by the revolutionary initiative of one or another representative institution which will decide, under the direct revolutionary pressure of the people, to organise a national constituent assembly.

In either case, such a victory will inaugurate a new phase in the revolutionary epoch....

Social democracy must strive to retain for itself, throughout the entire (bourgeois) revolution, a position which would best afford it the opportunity of furthering the revolution, which would not bind its hands in the struggle against the inconsistent and self-seeking policies of the bourgeois parties, and which would prevent it from losing its identity in bourgeois democracy.

Therefore, social democracy should not set itself the goal of seizing or sharing power in the provisional government but must remain the party of the extreme revolutionary opposition.... In only one case should social democracy take the initiative and direct its efforts towards seizing power and holding it as long as possible -- and that is if the revolution should spread to the advanced countries of western Europe where conditions for the realisation of socialism have already attained a certain degree of maturity. In such a case, the limited historical scope of the Russian revolution may be considerably broadened and it may become possible to set out on the path of socialist reforms.

By basing its tactics on the expectation that throughout the entire revolutionary period the Social Democratic Party will maintain a position of extreme opposition to all the governments which may succeed one another during the course of the revolution, social democracy can best prepare itself for wielding governmental power if it should fall into its hands.