social democrats

Marxist terminology

bourgeoisie - owners of the ‘means of production’ under capitalism

Proletariat - workers who had nothing to sell except their own labour

Immiseration - Describe the process through which proletariat got progressively poorer and more desperate

Foundation of the social democrats

In 1895, the liberation of labour group merged with another exile group, the union of Russian social democrats abroad. Also in 1895, the Marxists in St Petersburg founded the union of struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class with the aims of radicalising the city’s industrial workers.

The representatives of these groups came together to form the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)

Leaders of the RSDLP

V.I. Lenin - the son of a high-ranking civil servant

Yuli Martov - brought up in a middle class Jewish family

Ideas of the social democrats

• Marxism is at root a theory about history and human progress

• All societies passed through a series of stages, each with its own distinctive economic system and class structure

• One stage gave way to another when new social classes were formed as a result of economic change and challenged the existing ruling class.

• They believed it was inevitable that history would unfold this way

Marxist theory of history

Marx focused on 3 stages feudalism, capitalism and communism and on the transition from one to another. Two revolutions were involved:

• A bourgeois revolution which marked a transition from feudalism to capitalism

• A proletarian revolution which saw the destruction of capitalism and ushered in the communist era

Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Political strategy was debated at the second RSDLP congress.The issue on which the RSDLP was split was about the definition of a party member. Lenin wanted to restrict RSDLP party membership to those who committed to ‘personal participation’. Whereas Martov called for undertaking ‘regular work’. Despite this there were many differences within the party:

• Unlike his critics Lenin believed Russia was a capitalist country. He argued that the party should be ready to seize revolutionary moment

• Lenin’s opponents were unpersuaded for the imminence of the revolution and instead favoured a short-term RSDLP focus on promoting the development of trade unions in Russia.

Lenin won the vote in 1903 and his followers became known as the Bolsheviks and the opponents were known as the Mensheviks