Les mencheviks face à la révolution d'Octobre [Le Congrès extraordinaire du RSDRP (novembre-décembre 1917)

Abstract

L. Haimson, The Mensheviks and the October Revolution. The extraordinary Party Congress of the RSDRP (November-December 1917). This article is devoted to an examination of the deliberations of the Extraordinary Congress of the RSDRP(o) in November-December 1917, in the broader context of the evolution of political attitudes in various factions of the Menshevik Party after the Bolshevik seizure of power. The extraordinary Congress was the first congress of the Menshevik Party held after the October Revolution, as well as the first dominated by its new Internationalist majority. The article examines the major debates between this new party majority and its Defensist opponents on the crucial issues that now divided them : the posture to be adopted toward the Soviet regime— and specifically the character of the government that should be installed to replace it, the issue of the war, and the policies to be adopted toward the Constituent Assembly, the democratic organs of local self-government, and the central and local organs of Soviets. The article examines the reasons for the sense of paralysis felt by most factions within the Menshevik Party at this time, as well as the factors that caused them — temporarily — to attenuate if not bury their differences.