V

Of vast significance to mankind was the controversy that was being waged within the Socialist movement of Russia during these years, for this was the period in which Bolshevism was shaping itself and becoming articulate.  The words “Bolsheviki” and “Bolshevism” first made their appearance in 1903, but it was not until 1905 that they began to acquire their present meaning.  At the second convention of the Social Democratic party, held in 1903, the party split in two factions.  The majority faction, headed by Lenine, adopted the name Bolsheviki, a word derived from the Russian word “bolshinstvo,” meaning “majority.”  The minority faction, which followed Plechanov, though he did not formally join it, was called, in contradistinction, the “Mensheviki”—­that is, the minority.  No question of principle was involved in the split, the question at issue being simply whether there should be more or less centralization in the organization.  There was no thought on either side of leaving the Social Democratic party.  It was simply a factional division in the party itself and did not prevent loyal co-operation.  Both the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki remained Social Democrats—­that is, Socialists of the school of Marx.

During the revolutionary struggle of 1905-06 the breach between the two factions was greatly widened.  The two groups held utterly irreconcilable conceptions of Socialist policy, if not of Socialism as an ideal.  The psychology of the two groups was radically different.  By this time the Lenine faction was no longer the majority, being, in fact, a rather small minority in the party.  The Plechanov faction was greatly in the majority.  But the old names continued to be used.  Although a minority, the Lenine faction was still called the Bolsheviki, and the Plechanov faction called the Mensheviki, despite the fact that it was the majority.  Thus Bolshevism no longer connoted the principles and tactics of the majority.  It came to be used interchangeably with Leninism, as a synonym.  The followers of Vladimir Ulyanov continued to regard themselves as part of the Social Democratic party, its radical left wing, and it was not until after the Second Revolution, in 1917, that they manifested any desire to be differentiated from the Social Democrats.

Vladimir Ulyanov was born in 1870, at Simbirsk, in central Russia.  There is no mystery about his use of the alias, Nikolai Lenine, which he has made world-famous and by which he chooses to be known.  Almost every Russian revolutionist has had to adopt various aliases for self-protection and for the protection of other Russian Socialists.  Ulyanov has followed the rule and lived and worked under several aliases, and his writings under the name “Nikolai Lenine” made him a great power in the Russian Socialist movement.