The Mensheviks (, , from меньшинство, , 'minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Mensheviks were led by Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod.
The initial point of disagreement was the Mensheviks' support for a broad party membership, as opposed to the Bolsheviks' support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks gained a majority on the Central Committee in 1903, though the power of the two factions fluctuated in following years. Mensheviks came to be associated with the position that a bourgeois-democratic revolution and period of capitalism would need to occur before the conditions for a socialist revolution emerged. In 1912, the RSDLP formally split into Bolshevik and Menshevik parties. The Mensheviks further split over World War I and the Russian Provisional Government, which the party supported by entering a coalition with the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the liberal Constitutional Democrats.
In the 1917 election to the Constituent Assembly, the Mensheviks received about 3 percent of the vote, compared to the Bolsheviks' 23 percent. Mensheviks denounced the October Revolution as a coup d'état, though broadly supported the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War (while being critical of war communism). Their party was made illegal after the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921.
History of the split
1903–1906
At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP in August 1903, Julius Martov and Vladimir Lenin disagreed, firstly, with regard to which persons should be in the editorial committee of Iskra, the Party newspaper; secondly, in regards to the definition of a "party member" in the future Party statute: Lenin's formulation required the party member to be a member of one of the Party's organizations Martov's only stated that he should work under the guidance of a Party organization.
Although the difference in definitions was small, with Lenin's being more exclusive, it was indicative of what became an essential difference between the philosophies of the two emerging factions: Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters, whereas Martov believed it was better to have a large party of activists with broad representation.
Martov's proposal was accepted by the majority of the delegates (28 votes to 23). However, after seven delegates stormed out of the Congress—five of whom were representatives of the Jewish Bund who left in protest about their own federalist proposal being defeated—Lenin's supporters won a slight majority, which was reflected in the composition of the Central Committee and the other central party organs elected at the Congress. This was also the reason behind the naming of the factions. It was later hypothesized that Lenin had purposely offended some of the delegates in order to have them leave the meeting in protest, giving him a majority. However, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were united in voting against the Bundist proposal, which lost 41 to 5. Despite the outcome of the Congress, the following years saw the Mensheviks gathering considerable support among regular social democrats and effectively building up a parallel party organization.
1906–1916
At the 4th Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, a reunification was formally achieved. In contrast to the 2nd Congress, the Mensheviks were in the majority from start to finish, yet Martov's definition of a party member, which had prevailed at the 1st Congress, was replaced by Lenin's. On the other hand, numerous disagreements about alliances and strategy emerged. The two factions kept their separate structures and continued to operate separately.