The Russian Revolution Every student of the Russian Revolution is

Every student of the Russian Revolution is presented early on with a little wordparadox: that the Mensheviks, though their name means "minority," were the popular majority party in the revolutionary Russia of 1917, while the triumphant Bolsheviks, though their name means "majority," were actually only a minority faction when they came into power.

This paradox in naming is memorable because it effectively symbolizes a broader paradox: the victory of the Bolsheviks in the face of the broader support of the Mensheviks. Just as the Bolsheviks usurped the status of "majority" within the prewar revolutionary Social Democratic movement, so they later seemed to usurp the revolution itself. In the following pages we will examine the factors which led to the success of the Bolsheviks and the ultimate failure of the Mensheviks when the risks and opportunity of revolution presented itself to them.

We today have an advantage in thinking about the Russian Revolution that could not have been dreamed of until a few months ago: we can turn to Cable News Network on television to watch a contemporary Russia that is also in the midst of dramatic, perhaps revolutionary change. We can sense directly something of the confusion that results when all the ordinary machinery of authority and government break down: when bureaucrats cannot obey orders because they receive no orders and are not even sure who has the right to give orders, much less the pow

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e his program through the Congress.4 His efforts failed, however, and in the aftermath it was the Bolsheviks who split off into their own movement. Many Mensheviks refused for some time to accept that a split had taken place. This attitude was consistant with their United Front philosophy, which encouraged them to define their own movement on broad terms. But even the most optomistic Menshevik eventually had to admit that the Bolsheviks had split off to form a distinct movement. Even after the Bolsheviks departed, the Mensheviks continued to be riven by internal divisions. Everyone had a preferred program, the party leadership could not impose any single agenda, and the resolt was endless debate and deadlock as supporters of different individuals and ideas jockeyed for position. The Menshevik system of organization (or nonorganization) had its significant advantages. The Menshevik press, which aspired more to journalistic standards rather than being entirely a tool of party propaganda as the Bolshevik press was is often a more objective and reliable source for events during the prerevolutionary and revolutionary eras.5 More broadly, the Menshevik philosophy and organization both made it natural that

Category: History - T