groups, knowing that they had no chance to enact their program, made the
Duma a rostrum from which to address the masses throughout the nation.
Sometimes, indeed, the newspapers were forbidden to print their speeches,
but as a rule they were published, at least by the liberal papers, and so
disseminated among the masses. In these speeches the Social Democrats,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, Laborites, and more daring of the Constitutional
Democrats mercilessly exposed the bureaucracy, so keeping the fires of
discontent alive.


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.