On Nov. 16, 1903, Vladimir Lenin resigned from the editorial board of the Russian Social Democratic newspaper, Iskra, signaling his unwillingness to work with the Menshevik Party faction. The move solidified the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks that had been brewing over the summer and signaled a radical new path for Lenin and his followers.
The intellectual father of modern socialism is Karl Marx, who wrote "The Communist Manifesto" in 1848. The book's publishing was unrelated to but occurred at the same time as the great revolutions that sprung up across Europe (and even as far away as Rio de Janeiro) that year. Marx's critical analysis of the economy and the evolution of world history was brilliant but severely flawed. For instance, Marx dealt in absolutes: all workers were virtuous, all factory owners were evil exploiters. His concept of “dialectic materialism,” which borrowed ideas from Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Adam Smith and others, held that a civilization’s type of economy would dictate its type of government. He didn't explain how the Roman empire existed for 500 years as a republic and 500 years as a military dictatorship, all while having the same slave-based economy.
He also failed in his predictions about the evolution of society. He foresaw only growing class conflict while he failed to foresee class cooperation — workers buying into their companies and becoming owners themselves. What is more, Marx predicted that all nations, eventually, would have massive revolutions that would overthrow the existing social/political system and usher in a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the final stage of the nation state before it withered away with the advent of pure communism — a virtual utopia on earth where the idea that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ruled.
Revolution, Marx held, would take place only in the most industrialized of nations. This would happen when the working classes, the proletariat, became aware that they were being exploited by the factory owners and understood the power in their numbers. At that point, they would rise up and throw off their chains, destroy the existing social/political order, and establish their dictatorship.
By 1900, there were only three fully industrialized nations in the world, the United States, Germany and Great Britain. The United States and Britain never experienced a significant communist revolution, while Germany's only communist revolution occurred at the end of World War I and was put down after a brief civil war.
In fact, as history showed, communist revolutions never occurred in fully industrialized nations, as Marx believed. Instead, communist revolutions occurred in Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam, nations that were largely agricultural at the time of the revolution and only on the cusp of industrialization. In fact, many revolutionaries in those states saw communism as a means to industrialize.
When Marx's philosophy was introduced into Russia in the latter half of the 19th century, it found a fertile breeding ground. Widespread discontent with the czarist system, deplorable working and living conditions and endemic urban poverty led many to look at Marx's ideas as a blueprint for a new social and political system that would right historical wrongs and see wealth distributed more equitably throughout society.
In 1898, Russian socialists founded the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, a political party that advocated Marxist principles and called for revolution in order to overthrow the czarist state. Because of its philosophy, the party was deemed treasonous by the czarist authorities and outlawed. Party members frequently had to meet and organize in secret lest they be arrested by the czar's secret police.
Lenin, a party leader, was skeptical that Marx's ideas, literally interpreted, would bear fruit. In 1902, he wrote a political pamphlet titled, “What is to be done?” The pamphlet expressed Lenin's doubts that workers would one day spontaneously wake up to their exploitation at the hands of factory owners. Instead, he argued, Marx must simply be the starting point. The party should form a “vanguard,” a cadre of professional revolutionaries who must actively educate the people in Marxist ideology. More than that, however, this vanguard must not wait for the workers to rise up, instead they must actively attempt to foment revolution at every opportunity.
Lenin's view was regarded as heretical by many party leaders, and led to the beginning of factions within the party — those who believed that Marx should be taken literally and therefore the movement should wait for a spontaneous workers' revolution, and those, led by Lenin, who believed that the party leaders should actively work toward revolution.
When party leaders met for the Second Congress in the summer of 1903 in Brussels (though it was concluded in London because of pressure from Belgian authorities), Lenin's key adversary for control of the party was Julius Martov, an early colleague of Lenin's who had spent time with him in exile. The two men had shared similar views early on, but parted company as Lenin drifted further away from Marxist orthodoxy.
In the book “The Russian Revolution,” historian Sheila Fitzpatrick wrote: “Lenin's manner at the congress was overbearing; and he had recently been laying down the law very decisively on various theoretical questions, notably the organization and functions of the party. There was tension between Lenin and (Georgi) Plekhanov, the senior Russian Marxist; and the friendship between Lenin and his contemporary Yulii Martov was on the point of breaking.”
The party's chief media organ was the newspaper Iskra (The Spark), and the editorial board of the newspaper was one of the key issues debated during the congress. Lenin, Martov and Plekhanov had founded the paper and Lenin was not too happy that the rest of the party wanted to create an expanded board. Lenin was determined to control the board, however, and soon the issue came to a vote. Eventually, on this issue Martov and his faction backed down, and Lenin appeared to have full power over the newspaper.
Another major issue dealt with party membership. Lenin wanted to limit party members to those who actively supported the party, while Martov favored allowing anyone to join who agreed with the party's politics. In short, Lenin wanted his vanguard of active revolutionaries while Martov wanted the party open to all urban workers. Plekhanov supported Lenin, while the young firebrand Leon Trotsky supported Martov. Martov appeared to have the votes, but when members of his faction left the congress, Lenin won this issue as well.
Despite the fact that Lenin's followers were fewer in numbers than Martov's, except on this one issue, Lenin seized the label “The Majority” for his faction, which translates into Russian as “Bolshevik.” Martov and Trotsky's faction, by default, became known from that moment forward as “The Minority” or “Menshevik.” When the congress ended in August, Lenin appeared to have won everything he hoped to achieve.
Martov was not finished, however. He called for a meeting of the party's leaders in Geneva, Switzerland, for the end of October. Lenin attended, but soon learned that Martov had stacked the meeting with Mensheviks. Once again, critical party issues were revisited, and Lenin realized that he had been outmaneuvered. On Nov. 16, 1903, after a year of hard-fought party battles in which Lenin had tried to convince the others of his “vanguard” approach to Marxism, he walked out of the conference. He resigned from the editorial board of Iskra, handing its leadership to the Mensheviks, and resigned from other key party duties as well.
Lenin's resignation signaled his unwillingness to work with Martov and the Mensheviks any further. Though for nearly a decade the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks would still technically be part of the same political party, the split was now irreversible. Both factions now viewed the other as heretical, and they warred with each other almost as much as they warred against the czarist system.
In the book “The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States,” historian Ronald Grigor Suny wrote: “The split between those Marxists who emphasized leadership and direction over the workers' movement (the Bolsheviks) and those who promoted more democratic participation of the rank and file in the movement (the Mensheviks) would eventually divide the political Left throughout the world. After World War I, those who preferred Lenin's vanguardist model would be known as Communists and those who favored a more moderate, democratic approach would be known as Social Democrats.”
When the popular revolution of February 1917 broke out in St. Petersburg, Trotsky switched factions and joined the Bolsheviks. Though Martov tepidly supported Lenin at the beginning of the Bolshevik coup in October 1917, he soon migrated to Germany. He became quite critical of Lenin's regime and died of an illness in 1923.
Lenin ultimately created the modern totalitarian state, the Soviet Union, complete with secret police and concentration camps. He died in 1924 from a stroke.
Cody K. Carlson holds a master's in history from the University of Utah and teaches at Salt Lake Community College. An avid player of board games, he blogs at thediscriminatinggamer.com. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com