What would a Menshevik-controlled Russia look like?

Suppose that the Mensheviks won the Russian Civil War by some device and became the rulers of Russia, with any remaining Bolsheviks reduced to political exiles and raiding bands in Siberia.
What would the Mensheviks' policy for Russia look like in the 1920s, and onward? How would they interact with the West in general, and the United States in particular?
 
In terms of policy, they would likely be similar to the Democratic Socialists or Social Democrats of other countries. They were much friendlier to liberals and peasants, and didn't believe in a party dictatorship.

They would probably be just one party in a multi-party democracy along with the Kadets (liberals) and the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs). In fact, in a scenario where the Bolsheviks did not rule Russia, the most likely party to control Russia would be the SRs who were much more popular with the peasants than the Mensheviks - who were more doctrinaire Marxists and concentrated on the urban industrial workers.

As such, I don't think there'd be any problems with foreign relations. The government would be broadly similar to the Kerensky government. Most likely there would be no murder of the Romanovs.

The Mensheviks were pretty much a non-factor after the October Revolution, so any POD would likely require them to have stronger leadership in the days leading up to it so they ended up in control of the Petrograd Soviet and thus could take a leadership role in seizing power. Perhaps Martov was able to prevent the Mensheviks from joining Kerensky's government and kept the party together for a platform of immediate peace. In any case, when October comes, the Mensheviks would need to be both in control of the Soviets and have an armed wing willing to seize power from a failed Kerensky government, or at least have enough power to control enough territory that the Bolsheviks can't seize real power themselves.

It's a real tricky proposition to get the Mensheviks in charge. Not impossible, but at a certain point you need to forget about ideals and deal in power politics.
 
Suppose that the Mensheviks won the Russian Civil War by some device and became the rulers of Russia, with any remaining Bolsheviks reduced to political exiles and raiding bands in Siberia.
What would the Mensheviks' policy for Russia look like in the 1920s, and onward? How would they interact with the West in general, and the United States in particular?

Maybe look at the Democratic Republic of Georgia, where there was a Menshevik government until conquered by the Bolsheviks...
It's not the most representative of what would be like with Russia, but it may provide some insights...
 
In terms of policy, they would likely be similar to the Democratic Socialists or Social Democrats of other countries. They were much friendlier to liberals and peasants, and didn't believe in a party dictatorship.

They would probably be just one party in a multi-party democracy along with the Kadets (liberals) and the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs). In fact, in a scenario where the Bolsheviks did not rule Russia, the most likely party to control Russia would be the SRs who were much more popular with the peasants than the Mensheviks - who were more doctrinaire Marxists and concentrated on the urban industrial workers.

As such, I don't think there'd be any problems with foreign relations. The government would be broadly similar to the Kerensky government. Most likely there would be no murder of the Romanovs.

The Mensheviks were pretty much a non-factor after the October Revolution, so any POD would likely require them to have stronger leadership in the days leading up to it so they ended up in control of the Petrograd Soviet and thus could take a leadership role in seizing power. Perhaps Martov was able to prevent the Mensheviks from joining Kerensky's government and kept the party together for a platform of immediate peace. In any case, when October comes, the Mensheviks would need to be both in control of the Soviets and have an armed wing willing to seize power from a failed Kerensky government, or at least have enough power to control enough territory that the Bolsheviks can't seize real power themselves.

It's a real tricky proposition to get the Mensheviks in charge. Not impossible, but at a certain point you need to forget about ideals and deal in power politics.

Interesting. Though it would be difficult to get them into power, it sounds like the Mensheviks in power might lead to a more democratic Russia.
 
Maybe look at the Democratic Republic of Georgia, where there was a Menshevik government until conquered by the Bolsheviks...
It's not the most representative of what would be like with Russia, but it may provide some insights...
Take from it what you will but Trotsky described Georgia as a 'Menshevik Fortress'. The Mensheviks in Georgia firstly used Cossack detachments and their own soldiers to disarm the soldiers who were loyal to the Bolsheviks. The Menshevik Djugeli described the events in 1918, "This was not a disarming, but a plundering of the soldiers. These unfortunate men, weary, longing to get back to their homes, were deprived of everything, even of their boots. At the same time quite a trade was carried on. The arms were sold to robber bands. What took place was disgusting". These same Cossack battalions were used to suppress the peasants throughout Georgia and the region. Djugeli wrote "Ossetian villages are burning all round us ... In the interests of the struggling working class, in the interests of the future socialism, we will be cruel. Yes, we will. I can look on with imperturbed soul and clear conscience at the fire and smoke of the burning houses ... I am quite calm, quite calm indeed." And the Abkhazian Mensheviks sent a report to the Georgian government describing the detachment sent to suppress the peasants: "This detachment, by its cruelty and inhumanity, has surpassed the infamous Tsarist General Alikhanov. Thus, for instance, the Cossacks of this regiment broke into peaceful Abkhasian villages, carrying off anything that was of any value and violating the women. Another part of this detachment, under the personal supervision of Citizen Tuldiareli, indulged in bombing the houses of those persons who were pointed out by informers. Analogous deeds of violence were perpetrated in the Gudaut district."

The Bolsheviks themselves were suppressed, their meetings disrupted by gunfire and arrests and their newspapers declared illegal, and this all happened before the reverse had happened throughout Bolshevik Russia. The Mensheviks in Georgia worked closely with the foreign powers. German troops were invited into Georgia to help suppress the Bolsheviks under the command of General von Kress and then, once the Germans had left, British troops under the command of General Walker assisted in the suppression of strikes and peasant uprisings. Walker dictated some of the internal policy of the Mensheviks and an executive order came from his hand: "All Bolsheviks entering Georgia must be imprisoned only in the Mskhet [the jail of Tbilisi], and put under a strong guard." Never mind the hundreds of revolutionaries executed without trial who never got the 'blessing' of seeing the inside of a jail cell.

The Georgians also, despite declaring official neutrality, provided arms and supplies to Denikin and Wrangal and even raised troop battalions who joined Wrangal's forces. The Socialist-Revolutionary Chaikin, who organised the peasants in rebellion against Denikin throughout the Crimea, wrote in 1920 "It is self-evident that such facts as General Erdeli’s free departure from Georgia, the arrival from the Crimea of Denikin’s recruiting generals, who were not interned on their arrival in Georgia, and finally the propaganda and recruiting campaign in Poti of General Nevadovski, and others, most certainly constituted an infringement of Georgian neutrality in favour of the Volunteer Army [Denikin’s forces], and was a hostile act towards those forces which were in a state of war with the Volunteer Army." Nearly 30,000 troops were mobilised from Georgia to join Wrangal's forces in the Crimea, often with the assistance of British or French ships, and the Mensheviks assisted the White forces who, at the time, were massacring workers in Rostov, Novocherkask, Ekaterinodar and elsewhere throughout the region.

I actually think that a Menshevik Russia could have been more stable than the Russia of the Bolsheviks but only on the basis that the Imperialist powers were willing to support the Mensheviks instead of actively oppose them and, just as the Social Democrats in Germany were massacring the likes of Rosa Luxemburg, only over the bodies of thousands of workers and peasants.
 
I'm puzzled that people constantly give the Mensheviks as a serous alternative to the Bolsheviks in post-1917 Russia. They got 3.3 percent of the vote in the Constituent Assembly election--and even that was mostly from Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensheviks The majority of the Mensheviks (led by Martov) actually supported the Bolshevik side in the Civil War (however reluctantly). Ivan Maisky was repudiated by the Mensheviks for cooperating for a while with the SR-dominated Komuch anti-Bolshevik government in Siberia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Maisky

About the greatest role that the Mensheviks could expect--even if there were no Kolchak coup, and the socialist/liberal coalition of the Directory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_All-Russian_Government had held and ultimately prevailed in the Civil War--would be a few minor posts for Right Mensheviks in a Right-SR/Kadet-dominated coalition government.
 

That is fascinating... Altogether as ruthless as the Bolsheviks were in Russia proper.

Really the question is not whether the Mensheviks win, but how they win. The Bolsheviks formed what was in a sense an alliance with the peasants for power in Russia (an alliance that pretty much determined the latter imposition of collectivization, for reasons that may be a bit to complex to go into here). So do the Mensheviks gain power via urban proletarian revolution, as Communists of all stripes assumed was the path to power? Do the Mensheviks make their own pact with the peasants? Do the Mensheviks gain power by co-opting the February Revolution (which I imagine would involve them evolving into some sort of Social Democratic party) or by having their own analogue of Lenin's October Revolution?

I think the means matter much more than the intent in shaping Menshevik Russia's future.

fasquardon
 
I'm puzzled that people constantly give the Mensheviks as a serous alternative to the Bolsheviks in post-1917 Russia.

I imagine the reason why people consider them an alternative is because the Bolsheviks came from less and ended up with most of the Russian Empire by the end.

Of course, the Mensheviks didn't have Lenin, and it was Lenin's push for a revolution in October that made the Bolsheviks major players. Pretty much every one of the other bigwigs in the Bolshevik party thought they shouldn't launch revolutionary action when they did.

So to control Russia, I guess we also need to posit that the Mensheviks have a leader willing to make a decisive gamble and that gamble pays off...

fasquardon
 
The Mensheviks didn't have the popular support or platform for armed action that would allow them to take power. The Bolsheviks had both.

However, what if the SRs (more popular than the Bolsheviks in the countryside, and still fairly popular amongst the soldiers and urban workers) led the revolution? What if the SRs had subordinated the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks into a leftist alliance under their leadership, and were the dominant faction within the Reds during the Russian Civil War?
 
From what I had read (particularly Victor Serge) the Mensheviks controlled the Petrograd Soviet before the October Revolution and had every chance to usurp the power from the Provisional Government. They simply had no will to go ahead.
 
That is fascinating... Altogether as ruthless as the Bolsheviks were in Russia proper.

I think one thing to remember from the Russian Civil War that it wasn't only Bolsheviks or the Intervention that shot people and pushed them into common graves, and not only the Admirals and Atamans and whoever that sabered civillians and left them to rot, but that the Social Democrats also strung people up on lamp-posts to line the roads with, and sometimes threw the bodies down the well for good measure.

The Bolsheviks would have stood out in their ferocity, of course, but also in their purpose and message. The rest of them were slaughtering somewhat less, but also not giving a cogent reason why they were doing so. If your "revolution" mean cooperating with the officers, nobles, and landowners, and in fact returning property to these people, why would anyone believe your messages about the future or put up with your unsavoury methods of getting there?
 
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