RUSSIAN MENSHEVIKS IN EMIGRATION: ESTIMATES, FORECASTS AND REALITIES

Abstract

The article considers the insufficiently studied aspect of the Russian Social Democrats’ (Mensheviks) history – their activities in emigration. They represented as a very “scattered” community abroad, and, as a rule, concentrated around well-known party leaders and their periodicals. A special role was played by the Foreign Delegation of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (the Foreign Delegation) – the official governing body of the party abroad (1921-1951). Having admitted the transitional nature of the epoch, the Russian Social Democrats corrected the theoretical platform and tactics, and thereby contributed to the formation of the concept of democratic socialism in the Menshevik interpretation. In this connection, their activities seem to be the most significant, starting from the 1920s – 1930s and ending on the eve of the war. That’s when the Russian Social Democrats carried out intensive work to define the party platform, resolving a number of controversial issues and for the first time adopting [October 1933] the final document that provided a compromise between the various party currents among them. The world economic crisis that broke out in 1929-1933 raised the question not only about its causes, essence, consequences, but also about the tasks of social democracy in the conditions of the “international socialism” new guidelines appearance, in the development of which the Russian Mensheviks also took part. They also analyzed the nature of the “Stalinist general line” of industrialization, collectivization and the first five-year plans with a complete rejection of the “bloody ... and predatory forms” of the dictatorship regime, but at the same time highlighting the “historically positive sides” of the ongoing processes that took place.