See also Edinstvo in Kresna-Razlog Uprising

Kresna-Razlog Uprising

The Kresna-Razlog Uprising was a Bulgarian uprising against the Ottoman rule, predominantly in the areas of Kresna and Razlog in the region of Pirin Macedonia in late 1878 and early 1879...

.

Yedinstvo or Edinstvo was a faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) between 1914 and 1917 and then a small independent party in 1917 and 1918. It was led by Georgi Plekhanov

Georgi Plekhanov

Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where...

.

Background

Plekhanov was a prominent Russian Marxist theoretician and journalist who lived in exile in Europe from the early 1880s until 1917. Although he was revered by Russian social democrats as the founding father of Russian Marxism, post-1900 he was gradually eclipsed within the RSDLP by younger leaders like Julius Martov

Julius Martov

Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...

, Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

, Alexander Bogdanov

Alexander Bogdanov

Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....

, and others. In the immediate aftermath of the split between Lenin's Bolsheviks and Martov's Mensheviks in August 1903, Plekhanov first sided with Lenin, but in late 1903 he went over to the Mensheviks. When the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks further split in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

, Plekhanov formed a small faction within the Mensheviks known as "Party Mensheviks" (sometimes translated as "Pro-party Mensheviks"). He was critical of both the Bolsheviks and of most Mensheviks, whom he saw as concentrating on legal oppositionist work in Russia at the expense of revolutionary activities, using his newspaper, Dnevnik sotsialdemokrata (Diary of a Social Democrat), as bully pulpit

Bully pulpit

A bully pulpit is a public office or other position of authority of sufficiently high rank that provides the holder with an opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any matter...

Creation of Yedinstvo

In 1912 the RSDLP formally split into Lenin's supporters on the one hand and a coalition of Mensheviks, Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

's supporters and ethnic social democratic groups on the other hand. Plekhanov and some other social democrats refused to join either side. With the split becoming deeper in 1913 (e.g. the social democratic faction in the State Duma

State Duma

The State Duma , common abbreviation: Госду́ма ) in the Russian Federation is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia , the upper house being the Federation Council of Russia. The Duma headquarters is located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to...

 split in September 1913), those who didn't join either side began forming their own organizations, e.g. the Mezhraiontsy

Mezhraiontsy

Mezhraiontsy or Mezhraionka , usually translated as the interdistrictites , officially RSDRP , was a small Petrograd-based group within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which existed between 1913 and 1917...

 group was formed in November 1913. In early 1914, Plekhanov followed suit and formed his own group, Yedinstvo (Unity), with his old friends and followers Vera Zasulich

Vera Zasulich

Vera Ivanovna Zasulich was a Russian Marxist writer and revolutionary.-Radical beginnings:Zasulich was born in Mikhaylovka, Russia, one of four daughters of an impoverished minor noble. When she was 3, her father died and her mother sent her to live with her wealthier relatives, the Mikulich...

 and Lev Deich The group was founded abroad, but its supporters became active in Russia proper as early as the spring of 1914 and published 4 issues of the newspaper Yedinstvo in St. Petersburg in May and June 1914.

World War I

With the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in August 1914, Russian social democrats became split over the issue of supporting the Tsar

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

ist government, which they were normally irreconcilably opposed to, during a time of war. Plekhanov adopted a position on the extreme patriotic end of the social democratic opinion spectrum, known as "Defensism", supporting the Russian government for the duration of the war. His approach was adopted by the rest of the Yedinstvo leadership.

1917 Revolution

After the fall of the Romanov dynasty during the February Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

 of 1917 Yedinstvo became a legally functioning political group. On March 29, 1917, it resumed publication of its newspaper, Yedinstvo, in Petrograd. This time it was a daily and was first edited by Nikolai Iordansky. Plekhanov took over the newspaper upon his return to Russia on March 31, 1917 and editorial board members included Zasulich, Deutsch, and Grigory Aleksinsky

Grigory Aleksinsky

Grigory Alekseyevich Aleksinsky was a prominent Russia Social Democrat and Bolshevik who was elected to the Second Duma in 1907.Born to Middle class parents in Daghestan, he became politically involved when a student at Moscow University, from where he was excluded...

. Although Plekhanov received a hero's welcome in Russia, the group remained small and its influence very limited.

Plekhanov and Yedinstvo were staunch supporters of the Russian Provisional Government

Russian Provisional Government

The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...

 and favored Russia's continued participation in the war. They were adamantly opposed to the anti-war Bolsheviks and kept their distance from the Mensheviks, who were split on the issues of war and support for the Provisional Government. Yedinstvo refused to merge with the Mensheviks at the latter's Unification Congress in August 1917, at which point the group effectively became an independent party. It fielded its own candidates in the Russian Constituent Assembly

Russian Constituent Assembly

The All Russian Constituent Assembly was a constitutional body convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It is generally reckoned as the first democratically elected legislative body of any kind in Russian history. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m...

 elections on November 12, 1917 O.S. and received 25,000 votes according to a partial count of 54 constiencies out of 74.

In the meantime, the Bolsheviks had seized power during the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 and closed down Yedinstvo's newspaper in November 1917. By that time Plekhanov was seriously ill and although the newspaper was resumed as Nashe Yedinstvo (Our Unity) in December 1917 (it lasted until January 1918), the party slowly declined in the early months of 1918. Plekhanov died of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

in May 1918 and the party was finally suppressed by the Bolsheviks in June-July 1918 along with other socialist parties.