In August 1917, a “unification” congress of the RSDLP was held in Petrograd, following which the party accepted almost all social-democratic groups except those that were part of the RSDLP(b), and became known as the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (united) – RSDLP(u). Among its leaders were the ones of the Bund: Mikhail Liber, Raphael Abramovitch, etc. Soon the crisis of the policy of the coalition Provisional Government undermined the Menshevik authority as the Party always supported the coalition idea.

 

The Mensheviks rejected the October coup and left the Second Congress of Soviets. At the end of October 1917, after the suppression of Aleksander Kerensky and Pyotr Krasnov’s uprising, the Central Committee of the RSDLP(u) decided to abandon the armed struggle and spoke in favor of an agreement with the Bolsheviks based on recognition of the “equality of all revolutionary democracy” and for the creation of a homogeneous socialist government. At the Extraordinary Congress of the RSDLP(u) (Petrograd, November 30 – December 7, 1917) the center-left Martov–Dan bloc, which refused to actively fight the Bolsheviks, won. In protest against the change of political course, representatives of the party’s right-wing (Aleksander Potresov and others), who considered any agreement with the Bolsheviks unacceptable, abstained from the elections to the new Central Committee of the party and began to establish separate organizations.

 

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly (November 1917), the Mensheviks were defeated, receiving only 3 % of the votes. In January 1918, they strongly condemned the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks, and in March 1918, they spoke out against the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. At the same time, the Mensheviks continued to act openly in the Soviets, tried to maintain their positions in trade unions and cooperatives. In the spring and summer of 1918, they participated in the opposition movement of “authorized representatives from factories and plants” (Petrograd, Moscow, etc.).

 

The difficult political environment of the Civil War provoked serious disagreements within the party. The Mensheviks failed to achieve internal party unity. The Transcaucasian organization of the Mensheviks was transformed into an independent Social Democratic Party of Georgia, which had become the leading political force in the Georgian Democratic Republic (Nikolay Chkheidze, Noe Zhordania, Evgeni Gegechkori, and others). Leaders of the Petrograd and Moscow groups of the right-wing Mensheviks joined the Russian Revival Union, founded by the parties of the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) and Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) to overthrow the Bolsheviks. In June 1918, Ivan Maisky, a member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, joined the Samara Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch). In response, the VTSIK of Russian SFSR issued a resolution of June 14, 1918, to exclude the Mensheviks and the SRs from the Soviets at all levels. Thus, they had become semi-legal.

 

The Central Committee of the RSDLP condemned the participation of party members in anti-Bolshevik governments and expelled Ivan Maisky from the party. In October 1918, taking into account the position of the Menshevik leadership, the VTSIK allowed the RSDLP members (except for the right-wing) to participate in the work of the Soviets and in establishing defenses of the country. In August 1919, the Central Committee of the RSDLP called for the revolutionary overthrow of Aleksander Kolchak and Anton Denikin’s regime.

 

In the summer of 1919, Julius Martov in his program declaration “What should be done?” demanded the democratization of the political life of Soviet Russia, proposed to abandon the state monopoly in trade and other measures that anticipated the New Economic Policy (NEP).

 

In Soviet Russia, the Mensheviks sought to be a constructive opposition to the ruling Bolshevik Party. In 1920–1921, the RSDLP formally remained legal, its committees functioned in Moscow, Petrograd, and other major cities. In September 1920, after the departure of Julius Martov and Raphael Abramovitch, a foreign delegation of the RSDLP was created. During that period, local party organizations in Russia saw a rise in the influence of the right-wing of the party that rejected any agreements with the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

 

In 1922, the Mensheviks were ousted from the Soviets. In 1923, the RSDLP went underground. By the summer of 1925, the Party had virtually ceased to exist. In emigration, Menshevik organizations continued to operate for several more decades, but they did not play a significant political role. The Menshevik Center Abroad dissolved itself in 1951.