Alexander Martinov
Encyclopedia
Menshevik
The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...
before the Russian revolutions of 1917, and for a few years after the revolution an opponent of the Soviet government.
During 1901-2 Martinov was active on the journal of the Economist faction of the RSDLP, Rabocheye Dyelo publishing articles strongly criticised by Lenin in What Is To Be Done?
He joined the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
in 1923 as an opponent of the "Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
." He was a chief architect of the "bloc of four classes."
Martinov was an advocate of the two stage theory, that a fully capitalist government was needed to run well into its course before Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and thereafter Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
could be possible.