Split in the Duma Group¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter dissects the internal party crisis precipitated by the irreconcilable contradiction within the Duma fraction, where a Menshevik majority of one used its formal position to dominate and hamper the Bolshevik deputies, who had accepted this arrangement in the name of unity. Lenin sharply criticised his own fraction for dragging its feet, insisting the campaign against the seven Mensheviks was being conducted with insufficient determination. The July Central Committee meeting effectively censured the six Bolshevik deputies, though only Malinovsky was present, and this time no excuses were accepted. The handling of the split was crucial: workers had to understand the reasons, with full responsibility placed on the Mensheviks. Badayev’s account reveals that the Bolshevik deputies only broke with the Mensheviks reluctantly and under pressure, driven by the desire to preserve unity among the broad masses, for whom the Duma fraction was the visible embodiment of party cohesion.
The Bolsheviks organised a signature campaign to mobilise support. By 1 November, in just two weeks, Pravda and the Bolshevik fraction received over eight resolutions bearing more than 5,000 signatures, against the Mensheviks’ 3,500. This lead widened dramatically; by 1 December, the Bolsheviks could count at least two and a half times as many worker supporters, a conclusion reinforced by fundraising: the Mensheviks raised only about 150 roubles for every 1,000 obtained by the Bolsheviks. Despite this decisive working-class alignment, conciliationist moods persisted. The Vperyod group, for instance, recognised the justice of the six’s demands but dismissed the split as minor organisational clashes, missing the fundamental political differences.
The Mensheviks exploited the split abroad, taking advantage of foreign Social Democrats’ ignorance of Russian affairs and their reluctance to countenance division. They raised the question at the International Socialist Bureau on 1 December, with Chkheidze and Skobelev travelling to London. They attempted to enlist Plekhanov’s authority, but he not only declined to attend but sent a letter supporting the six, blaming the Mensheviks, and resigning from the Bureau on the grounds that the split had dealt a decisive blow to party unity.
The chapter concludes with a polemic against Martov, who spitefully defined Bolshevism as “maximalism, the striving for immediate maximum results… without taking into account objective conditions.” The text counters that this caricature bears no resemblance to reality; had it been true, the Bolsheviks could never have won a majority of the working class in 1912–14 and again in 1917. Martov’s embittered envy, written in exile after October, is dismissed as defective memory. The fundamental distinction between revolutionary Marxism and reformism is not that the former rejects reforms—on the contrary, revolutionaries are the most consistent fighters for reforms—but that reformists, under capitalist crisis, pass to counter-reforms and austerity, while serious reforms have historically been the by-product of revolutionary struggle. Under tsarism, even the fight for partial demands led inexorably to the demand for overthrow.