Mensheviks

The translation of the Russian word "меньшевик" corresponds to the word minority. The main representatives of the faction included Martov and Plekhanov. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, had a long and resolute struggle with them.

In 1903, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party held its Second Congress in Brussels and London. Around the issue of the party constitution, the whole party was divided into two opposing factions, namely, the majority—the Bolsheviks—and the minority—the Mensheviks. During the 1905 Revolution, the Mensheviks opposed the leadership of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the alliance of workers and peasants and the armed uprising. After the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, the Mensheviks split, and the minority led by Plekhanov assumed the mission of the "party protector" to maintain the unity of the; the majority advocated the abolition of the party's secret organizations and activities, and became the "abolitionists". Later, in January 1912, due to sharp inner struggle the Mensheviks were expelled from the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. Later, during the World War I, the Mensheviks degenerated into social chauvinists. After the February Revolution in 1917, the Mensheviks took part in the provisional bourgeois government. Following the October Revolution, they publicly called for the overthrow of the Soviet power.

The views of Mensheviks mainly included the following aspects: (1) On the question of the organizational principle of the party, they opposed the establishment of an organized and well- disciplined Marxist party in Russia. They argued that the party discipline meant the "serfdom" within the party and advocated that the party was not an organized whole, but a loose and irregular organization in which every striker or demonstrator, answering for his actions, could proclaim himself a party member, thus expanding the scale of the revolution. (2) On the question of the leadership and the future of the revolution, fearing the withdrawal of the bourgeoisie from the revolution, the Mensheviks advocated that the proletariat must have not strived for leadership in the bourgeois revolution in Russia, so as to unite all forces sympathetic to the revolution and expand the scale of the revolution as much as possible. On the question of the future and fate of the revolution, the Mensheviks advocated that it was necessary to give up the illusion of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the aim of seizing power or of sharing power in aprovisional government, and to be a party with an extreme attitude of revolutionary opposition. (3) On the question of the strategy and tactics of the struggle, they opposed violent revolution and dictatorship, and advocated that the working class should only carry out legal and peaceful parliamentary struggle. (4) On the question of the relationship with the peasantry, the Mensheviks strongly opposed the alliance between the working class and the peasantry because they mistook the peasantry as the reactionary pillars of the Tsarist autocracy and feared that the participation of the peasantry would cause the bourgeoisie to withdraw from the revolution. (5) When it comes to the transition from the democratic revolution to the socialist revolution, the Mensheviks advocated that there should have been a quite long transition period between the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. This is, in fact, a reactionary opportunist view disguised as shrinking back, gave up the revolutionary leadership of the working class, or even abandoned the view of revolution. The ideology of the Mensheviks was later called as Menshevism.