The social democrats (SD)

• Bourgeoisie (marxist terminology)

  owners of the ‘means of production’ under capitalism
• Proletariat (marxist terminology)

  workers who had nothing to sell except their own labour
• Immiseration (marxist terminology)

  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


  Lenin's faction that won the vote in 1903
• Mensheviks


  Lenin's opponents who lost the vote in 1903
• Political strategy debated at the second RSDLP congress

  1. Definition of a party member

  2. Lenin wanted to restrict RSDLP party membership to those who committed to 'personal participation'

  3. Martov called for undertaking 'regular work'
• Despite differences, there were many differences within the party
• Lenin's view

  Russia was a capitalist country, party should be ready to seize revolutionary moment
• Lenin's opponents' view

  Unconvinced of the imminence of the revolution, favoured a short-term RSDLP focus on promoting the development of trade unions in Russia
• Lenin won the vote in 1903