By Doug Enaa Greene
April 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Voice with the author's permission — Whatever their differences, Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov, and Trotsky all
saw the Russian Revolution as following in the experience of the French
Revolution of 1789. The Russian revolutionaries also modeled themselves
on the different parties of the French Revolution, whether consciously
or unconsciously, as guides for action. Lenin and the Bolsheviks
believed they were modern-day Jacobins – stalwart revolutionaries who
would organize the working class and take power. By contrast, the
Mensheviks were moderate Girondins. Menshevism was committed to
gradualism and opposed to the “historical impatience” of a socialist
revolution. Like the Girondins, the Mensheviks were honorable, but like
their predecessors, they lacked faith in the revolutionary abilities of
the people. That was the root of their failure in 1917.
