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The Mensheviki favored participation in the Duma elections and co-operation with the liberal and radical bourgeoisie parties, in so far as might be necessary to overthrow the autocracy, and without sacrificing Socialist principles.
His first pamphlet, published in Geneva in 1903, was an attempt to reconcile the two factions in the Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki. He was an orthodox Marxist of the most extreme doctrinaire type, and naturally inclined to the Bolshevik view.
This document is of the highest historical importance and merits close study. As already noted, Tchcheidze, leader of the Mensheviki, was president of the Council, and this appeal to the people shows how fully the moderate views of his group prevailed.
The question arose among the revolutionary working-class organizations whether they should consent to co-operation with the liberal bourgeoisie in a new coalition Cabinet or whether they should refuse such co-operation and fight exclusively on class lines. This, of course, opened the entire controversy between Bolsheviki and Mensheviki.
We ought, once for all, to rid ourselves of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right and of the Mensheviki." In this summary of the Bolsheviki war against democracy, it will be observed, no attempt has been made to gather all the lurid and fantastic stories which have been published by sensational journalists.
The leading place in this organization was taken by the so-called Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, organized by the local Duma and the Central Executive Committee of the former regime. Here and there Right Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki held sway.
They wanted to establish, not democracy, but dictatorship of Russia by a small, disciplined, intelligent, and determined minority of working-men. The lines of cleavage between the Mensheviki and the Bolsheviki were thus clearly drawn.
We can get some idea of this strife from a criticism which Lenine directs against the Mensheviki: In its class composition this party is not Socialist at all. It does not represent the toiling masses.
While Bolsheviki and Mensheviki wrangled and disputed, great forces were at work among the Russian people. By 1910 the terrible pall of depression and despair which had settled upon the nation as a result of the failure of the First Revolution began to break.
The Bolsheviki, on the other hand, relied exclusively upon armed insurrection, initiated and directed by desperate minorities. The Mensheviki contended that the time for secret, conspiratory action was past; that Russia had outgrown that earlier method. As far as possible, they carried the struggle openly into the political field.
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