The word
menshevik means 'minority'.
Originally part of the
Russian Social Democratic Party, split from the
Bolsheviks (majority) in 1903, forming two wings of the RSDP, until the
Bolsheviks formed a separate party in 1912. They were a moderate
socialist party claiming allegiance to
Karl Marx, but believed that the working class must collaborate with the
liberal bourgeoisie to overthrow czarism and establish a
bourgeois democratic republic.